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.
Author(s): Stephen Nugent, Cris Shore
Series: ASA Monographs v. 38
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 272
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Contents......Page 5
List of plates......Page 10
Notes on contributors......Page 11
Introduction: towards an anthropology of elites......Page 14
World society as an old regime......Page 35
Elites, politics and peripheries......Page 50
The powers behind the masks: Mexico's political class and social elites at the end of the millennium......Page 52
Gente boa: elites in and of Amazonia......Page 74
Elites on the margins: mestizo traders in the southern Peruvian Andes......Page 87
The vanishing elite: the political and cultural work of nationalist revolution in Sri Lanka......Page 104
The changing nature of elites in Indonesia today......Page 123
Elites, hegemony and tradition......Page 140
Settlers and their elites in Kenya and Liberia......Page 142
Cultural heritage and the role of traditional intellectuals in Mali and Cameroon......Page 158
The construction of elite status in the extreme Southern Highlands of Madagascar......Page 171
Revising the past: the heritage elite and Native peoples in North America......Page 186
Revolution and royal style: problems of post-socialist legitimacy in Laos......Page 202
Elites, professionals and networks......Page 220
How far can you go? English Catholic elites and the erosion of ethnic boundaries......Page 222
Pre-symptomatic networks: tracking experts across medical science and the new genetics......Page 240
Anthropologists: lions and/or foxes. An afterword......Page 262
Index......Page 268
