Elite Cultures: Anthropological Perspectives

273 Pages·2004·8.13 MB·English

Elite Cultures
The anthropological study of elites has gained increasing prominence with
the shift of the anthropological gaze toward issues of power,prestige and status
in the societies of anthropologists themselves.However,our understanding of
elites is often partial,obscured as it is by the theoretical weaknesses of Western
models on the one hand and,on the other,by the difficulties in studying elites
from the ‘inside’.Drawing on a diverse,comparative ethnographic literature,
this new volume examines the intimate spaces and cultural practices of those
elites who occupy positions of power and authority across a variety of
different settings.
Using ethnographic case studies from a wide range of geographical areas,
including Mexico, Peru Amazonia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Europe, North
America and Africa, the contributors explore the inner worlds of meaning
and practice that define and sustain elite identities.They also provide insights
into the cultural mechanisms that maintain elite status,and into the complex
ways that elite groups relate to, and are embedded within, wider social and
historical processes.The book addresses a number of fundamental questions
about the nature of elites and society such as:
• Howdoelitesindifferentsocietiesmaintaintheirpositionofdomination?
• How do elites reproduce themselves over time?
• How do elites represent themselves?
• How can we study elites anthropologically?
• Whatimplicationsdoesthisstudyhaveforthedisciplineofanthropology?
In exemplifying anthropology’s contribution to the study of power, this
book provides a welcome and timely addition to the literature as well as to
current debates about the scope and direction of the discipline itself.
Cris Shore and Stephen Nugent are both Readers in Anthropology at
Goldsmiths College, University of London. Cris Shore is also Head of the
Anthropology Department.
ASA Monographs (Vol no 38)
Titles available:
24 Reason and Morality
Edited by Joanna Overing
29 Anthropology and Autobiography
Edited by Judith Okely and Helen Callaway
30 Contemporary Futures:Perspectives from Social
Anthropology
Edited by Sandra Wallman
31 Socialism:Ideals,Ideologies,and Local Practice
Edited by C.M.Hann
32 Environmentalism:The View from Anthropology
Edited by Kay Milton
33 Questions of Consciousness
Edited by Anthony P.Cohen and Nigel Rapport
34 After Writing Culture
Edited by Allison James,Jenny Hockey and Andrew Dawson
35 Ritual,Performance,Media
Edited by Felicia Hughes-Freeland
36 The Anthropology of Power
Edited by Angela Cheater
37 An Anthropology of Indirect Communication
Edited by Joy Hendry and C.W.Watson
Elite Cultures
Anthropological perspectives
Edited by Cris Shore
and Stephen Nugent
London and New York
First published 2002
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© 2002 Association of Social Anthropologists, for selection and
editorial matter; individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Elite cultures: anthropological perspectives/edited by Cris Shore
and Stephen Nugent.
p. cm.–(ASA monographs; v. 38)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Elite (Social sciences)–Cross-cultural studies. 2. Power (Social
sciences)–Cross-cultural studies. I. Shore, Cris. II. Nugent, Stephen
(Stephen L.) III. A.S.A. monographs; 38.
GN492.25 .E34 2002
305.5'2–dc21 2001058511
ISBN 0-203-42619-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-44057-9 (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0–415–27794–9 (hbk)
ISBN 0–415–27795–7 (pbk)
To the memory of Abner Cohen (1921–2001)

Contents
List of plates ix
Notes on contributors x
1 Introduction:towards an anthropology of elites 1
CRIS SHORE
2 World society as an old regime 22
KEITH HART
PART I
Elites, politics and peripheries 37
3 The powers behind the masks:Mexico’s political
class and social elites at the end of the millennium 39
JOHN GLEDHILL
4 Gente boa:elites in and of Amazonia 61
STEPHEN NUGENT
5 Elites on the margins:mestizo traders in the southern
Peruvian Andes 74
PENELOPE HARVEY
6 The vanishing elite:the political and cultural work
of nationalist revolution in Sri Lanka 91
JONATHAN SPENCER
7 The changing nature of elites in Indonesia today 110
C.W.WATSON
viii Contents
PART II
Elites, hegemony and tradition 127
8 Settlers and their elites in Kenya and Liberia 129
ELIZABETH TONKIN
9 Cultural heritage and the role of traditional intellectuals
in Mali and Cameroon 145
MICHAEL ROWLANDS
10 The construction of elite status in the extreme Southern
Highlands of Madagascar 158
SANDRA J.T.M. EVERS
11 Revising the past:the heritage elite and Native peoples
in North America 173
LAURA PEERS
12 Revolution and royal style:problems of post-socialist
legitimacy in Laos 189
GRANT EVANS
PART III
Elites, professionals and networks 207
13 How far can you go? English Catholic elites and the
erosion of ethnic boundaries 209
JOHN EADE
14 Pre-symptomatic networks:tracking experts across
medical science and the new genetics 227
MONICA KONRAD
15 Anthropologists:lions and/or foxes.An afterword 249
RONALD FRANKENBERG
Index 255
Plates
1.1 Heads of Government meeting as the European Council at
Fontainebleau in June 1984 7
5.1 Drinking together at a local festival 86
8.1 Settler house in 1970s Liberia 140
10.1 Village in the extreme Southern Highlands of Madagascar 161
11.1 Keith Knecht,Odawa interpreter,with visitors at Colonial
Michilimackinac,summer 1995 185
11.2 ‘We are playing ourselves,the real First Nations people’:Cecilia
Littlewolf-Walker,interpreter,Old Fort William,summer 1994 186
12.1 Baci Luang,or Royal Spirit calling ceremony,held by Lao
Royals in exile in Paris 193
12.2 The Thai King makes offerings to monks at the central stupa,
That Luang,in the capital city Vientiane,Laos 1994 194