Description
Book Synopsis The essays assembled in this book exemplify the way political anthropologists address a range of problems that deeply affect people throughout the world. The authors draw their inspiration from the work of Canadian anthropologist Richard B. Lee, and, like him, they are concerned with understanding and acting upon issues of “indigenous rights”; the impact of colonialism, postcolonial state formation, and neoliberalism on local communities and cultures; the process of culture change; what the history and politics of egalitarian societies reveal about issues of “human nature” or “social evolution”; and how peoples in southern Africa are affected by and responding to the most recent crisis in their midst, the spread of AIDS. The authors in this volume discuss the state of a range of contemporary debates in the field that in various ways extend the political, theoretical, and empirical issues that have animated Lee's work. In addition, the book provides readers with important contemporary Kalahari studies, as well as “classic” works on foraging societies.
Trade Review “Solway does an admirable job in her introduction, describing the three intellectual-cum-activist projects which underlie the collection… Its most significant contribution for those already familiar with the San literature lies in expanding the pool of recent analyses of San identity politics, and in documenting the rise and challenges facing the San-owned and San-oriented NGOs… [it] is also a good reference source for a broader readership seeing an overview of Lee's intellectual legacy and its trajectories.” • Anthropos
Table of Contents Introduction
Jacqueline Solway
PART I: THE POLITICS AND PRACTICES OF EGALITARIANISM
Chapter 1. All People Are (Not) Good
Bruce G. Trigger
Chapter 2. Community, State, and Questions of Social Evolution in Karl Marx's Ethnological Notebooks
Christine Ward Gailey
Chapter 3. Subtle Matters of Theory and Emphasis: Richard Lee and Controversies about Foraging Peoples
Thomas C. Patterson
Chapter 4. "The Orginal Affluent Society": Four Decades On
Jacqueline Solway
Chapter 5. The Original Affluent Society
Marshall Sahlins
Chapter 6. On the Politics of Being Jewish in a Multiracial State
Karen Brodkin
PART II: THE KALAHARI THEN AND NOW
Chapter 7. The Lion/Bushman Relationship in Nyae Nyae in the 1950s: A Relationship Crafted in the Old Way
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
Chapter 8. The Kalahari Peoples Fund: The Activist Legacy of the Harvard Kalahari Research Group
Megan Biesele
Chapter 9. Land, Livestock, and Leadership among the Ju/'hoansi San of North-Western Botswana
Robert K. Hitchcock
Chapter 10. Contemporary Bushman Art, Identity, Politics, and the Primitivism Discourse
Mathias Guenther
Chapter 11. Class, Culture, and Recognition: San Fam Workers and Indigenous Identities
Renée Sylvain
Chapter 12. The Other Side of Development: HIV/AIDS among Men and Women in Ju/;hoansi Villages
Ida Susser
PART III: RICHARD BORSHAY LEE: AN APPRECIATION
Chapter 13. Richard B. Lee and Company: A Kalahari Chronicle, 1963-2000
Compiled by Jacqueline Solway
Chapter 14. Richard B. Lee: The Politics, Art, and Science of Anthropology
Christine Ward Gailey
Richard Borshay Lee: Selected Bibliography
Compiled by Jacqueline Solway
Notes on Contributors
Index
