The Politics of Egalitarianism : Theory and Practice

The essays assembled in this book exemplify the way political anthropologists address a range of problems that deeply affect people throughout the world. The authors draw their inspiration from the work of Canadian anthropologist Richard B. Lee, and, like him, they are concerned with understanding and acting upon issues of “indigenous rights”; the impact of colonialism, postcolonial state formation, and neoliberalism on local communities and cultures; the process of culture change; what the history and politics of egalitarian societies reveal about issues of “human nature” or “social evolution”; and how peoples in southern Africa are affected by and responding to the most recent crisis in their midst, the spread of AIDS. The authors in this volume discuss the state of a range of contemporary debates in the field that in various ways extend the political, theoretical, and empirical issues that have animated Lee's work. In addition, the book provides readers with important contemporary Kalahari studies, as well as “classic” works on foraging societies. CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction Part I: The Politics and Practices of Egalitarianism 1. All People Are (Not) Good 2. Community, State, and Questions of Social Evolution in Karl Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks 3. Subtle Matters of Theory and Emphasis: Richard Lee and Controversies about Foraging Peoples 4. “The Original Affluent Society”: Four Decades On 5. The Original Affluent Society 6. On the Politics of Being Jewish in a Multiracial State Part II: The Kalahari Then and Now 7. The Lion/Bushman Relationship in Nyae Nyae in the 1950s: A Relationship Crafted in the Old Way 8. The Kalahari Peoples Fund: The Activist Legacy of the Harvard Kalahari Research Group 9. Land, Livestock, and Leadership among the Ju/’hoansi San of North-Western Botswana 10. Contemporary Bushman Art, Identity Politics, and the Primitivism Discourse 11. Class, Culture, and Recognition: San Farm Workers and Indigenous Identities 12. The Other Side of Development: HIV/AIDS among Men and Women in Ju/’hoansi Villages Part III: Richard Borshay Lee: An Appreciation 13. Richard B. Lee and Company: A Kalahari Chronicle, 1963–2000 14. Richard B. Lee: The Politics, Art, and Science of Anthropology Richard Borshay Lee: Selected Bibliography Notes on Contributors Index