REVIEW: The Politics of Culture by Brett Williams (original) (raw)

Political Anthropology ANTH-414-001

The central question of this class is what is politics? While many disciplines focus on the study of formal state institutions like government and political parties, anthropologists ask how relations of power are distributed, organized, produced, and reproduced in social life and how they are contested. To this end, anthropologists are interested in the rituals, symbols and ideologies that shape relations of power and focus on how politics relates to other aspects of society like family, religion, and economics. The first part of this class will explore classic anthropological approaches to politics. Drawing on these theories, we will examine the forms of inequality and exclusion that structure the modern nation-state and explore the demands for equality, recognition and belonging from religious, ethnic, and racial minorities. We also explore the inequalities and imbalances of power between nation-states in a larger world system and how these power imbalances give rise to and inform approaches to human rights, humanitarianism, development, terrorism, and democracy.

THE CULTURE-POWER EQUATION: A READING OF ARUNI KASHYAP'S THE HOUSE WITH A THOUSAND STORIES

Rabindra Bharati Journal of Philosophy, 2022

A society's identity is ascertained by what is called its culturecustoms, rituals, art forms, etc. A society cannot be established without these. But it becomes important to discuss who established these practices and on what basis it was done. It is also mandatory to discuss if all the people in a society benefit from these practices. If a society's culture is established only to benefit a few people, those few must be in a position, where nobody can question them. The circumstances in which a group of people are able to assume a position of power over others, have to be analysed. It would also help to explore how the oppressed people react to the situation. As power transfers from one party to another when situations change, how each party behaves in different situations will also be studied in this paper. To traverse this subject Aruni Kashyap's novel, The House with a Thousand Stories, has been chosen.