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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... discourse . way Enlightenment - era philosophers professed faith in man's ability to gain mastery over himself and his environment through reason and the scientific pursuit , and discovery , of truth . Fundamental to the Enlightenment ...
... discourse is pronounced in a particular cul- tural dialect " ( Sahlins 1993 : 12 ) . The idea of modernity , indeed , arose within the context of Western European societies in the “ age of discovery ” —a mo- ment of encounter with ...
... discourses as we seek to understand them . Ideoscapes are not only amorphous but also move at lightning speed ; once ... discourse , and belief " ( 1997 : 286 ) . Indeed , much of the literature on cultural aspects of “ globalization ...
... the flow of the global discourse of transparency and , with it , the confident claims of modernizing and globalizing institutions , even where they seek to make theirs the goods , institutional arrangements Power Revealed and Concealed II.
... discourses of sus- picion generally assert — contra transparency claims — that power is inher- ently ambivalent and that it ... discourse . Ideas that power operates in hidden ways make necessary their claims that it operates in the open ...
Contents
1 | |
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 |