Power and Its Disguises

Anthropologists now argue that their perspectives help those in the North understand themselves in a world that is experiencing profound changes. In exploring this argument what emerges from this work is a multilayered complexity of political relations which include symbols and rituals associated with political action. The emergent New World Order is pregnant with symptoms of crisis, ranging from explosive nationalisms of the former Soviet Empire and the gunmen of Mogadishu, to the increasing stoicism of the public of western democracies towards the political process. This book explores the differences between the experience and nature of power in different kinds of societies and presents a study of informal power relations, social movements and power in everyday life. The book ends with a discussion of the political role of anthropology itself, a discipline born in colonialism which nevertheless confronts its largely middle-class practitioners with an uncomfortably close view of both the needs and struggles of individuals and communities facing injustice and oppression.