Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World OrderHarry G. West, Todd Sanders Duke University Press, 2003 M04 17 - 328 pages Transparency has, in recent years, become a watchword for good governance. Policymakers and analysts alike evaluate political and economic institutions—courts, corporations, nation-states—according to the transparency of their operating procedures. With the dawn of the New World Order and the “mutual veil dropping” of the post–Cold War era, many have asserted that power in our contemporary world is more transparent than ever. Yet from the perspective of the relatively less privileged, the operation of power often appears opaque and unpredictable. Through vivid ethnographic analyses, Transparency and Conspiracy examines a vast range of expressions of the popular suspicion of power—including forms of shamanism, sorcery, conspiracy theory, and urban legends—illuminating them as ways of making sense of the world in the midst of tumultuous and uneven processes of modernization. In this collection leading anthropologists reveal the variations and commonalities in conspiratorial thinking or occult cosmologies around the globe—in Korea, Tanzania, Mozambique, New York City, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nigeria, and Orange County, California. The contributors chronicle how people express profound suspicions of the United Nations, the state, political parties, police, courts, international financial institutions, banks, traders and shopkeepers, media, churches, intellectuals, and the wealthy. Rather than focusing on the veracity of these convictions, Transparency and Conspiracy investigates who believes what and why. It makes a compelling argument against the dismissal of conspiracy theories and occult cosmologies as antimodern, irrational oversimplifications, showing how these beliefs render the world more complex by calling attention to its contradictions and proposing alternative ways of understanding it. |
From inside the book
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... cultural landscape . In the post – Cold War era , we have ample evidence to question the bold as- sertions of both modernization paradigms ( see Escobar 1995 ; Ferguson 1999 ; Donham 1999 ; Verdery 1996 ; West 2001 ) . While it is ...
... cultural effects but that is not , itself , culturally produced . The notion of multiple modernities suggests , on ... cultural programs ” ( Eisen- stadt 2000 : 2 ) . To this end , cultural historians , anthropologists , and others have ...
... cultural interconnectivity in terms of what he defines as a variety of -scapes — for example , ethnoscapes , mediascapes , financescapes , techno- scapes — formed of cultural flows that move over , and superimpose them- selves on ...
... cultural elements with global preten- sions . It also suggests the possibility that these elements will be transformed in their varied new settings — that these -scapes will be manicured by their in- habitants . Ideoscapes travel ...
... cultural framework . Collectively , they ask : What can we learn from occult cosmologies and conspiracy theories about the varied social experiences of power in our globalizing world ? What do these diverse ideoscapes of sus- picion ...
Contents
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1 Gods Markets and the IMF in the Korean Spirit World Laurel Kendall | 38 |
Narratives of ConspiracyTransparency and Ritual Murder in the Nigerian Popular Print and Electronic Media Misty L Bastian | 65 |
3 Who Rules Us Now? Identity Tokens Sorcery and Other Metaphors in the 1994 Mozambican Elections Harry G West | 92 |
Charity Conspiracy and Power in New Order Indonesia Albert Schrauwers | 125 |
Revealed and Concealed Economies in Millennial Tanzania Todd Sanders | 148 |
Paranoia and Complicity in PostCommunist Metahistories Caroline Humphrey | 175 |
7 Paranoia Conspiracy and Hegemony in American Politics Daniel Hellinger | 204 |
Reality Constructions and the Magical Manipulation of Power Karen McCarthy Brown | 233 |
Conspiracy Theory and Therapeutic Culture in Millennial America Susan Harding and Kathleen Stewart | 258 |
An Afterword Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff | 287 |
Contributors | 301 |
Index | 305 |