Description
Power and its Disguises examines ways in which anthropology can help us understand a world which is experiencing profound changes in the relationships between governments and the societies they govern. While some developments seem to offer the promise of greater freedom, the New World Order is pregnant with the symptoms of crisis, from the explosive nationalisms of the former Soviet Union and the gunmen of Mogadishu to increasing public cynicism in the West towards politicians and the political process. In a controversial and thought provoking study, John Gledhill examines the ways in which an analysis of contemporary problems is enhanced by studies of local level and popular social movements, informal networks of power and the processes of resistance, and the interplay of cultural understandings and power politics. He looks, too, at the political role of anthropology itself