Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics and the Real Life of States, Societies, and Institutions (Routledge Classic Texts in Anthropology)

In the third edition of this important and influential book, Michael Herzfeld revisits the idea of 'cultural intimacy'. The chapters examine a range of topics touching on the relationship between state and citizen, and the notion of national character. Herzfeld provides a developed theoretical framework and additional clarification of core concepts such as disemia, social poetics and structural nostalgia. The text has been fully updated in light of recent scholarship and events, including comment on Greece and the European Union. There is new material drawn from regions such as Thailand and China, and further consideration of religious intimacy and its impact on cities. The book improves our understanding of how states, societies and institutions function and illustrates the relevance of anthropology to contemporary issues such as globalization, censorship, ethnic conflict and nationalism.-- Provided by Publisher Title page 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Table of contents 8 Acknowledgments 9 1 Introducing cultural intimacy 12 2 The geopolitics of cultural intimacy 56 3 Of definitions and boundaries 88 4 Persuasive resemblances 104 5 The dangers of metaphor: from troubled waters to boiling blood 118 6 Cultural intimacy and the meaning of Europe 131 7 Structural nostalgia: time and the oath in the mountain villages of Crete 150 8 Social poetics in theory and practice: regular guys and irregular practices 176 9 The practice of stereotypes 191 Afterword: toward a militant middle ground 198 References 209 Index 231