Impulse to Act
A New Anthropology of Resistance and Social Justice

Othon Alexandrakis (Edited by), Jessica Greenberg (Contributions by), Eirine Avramapoulou (Contributions by), Irene Peano (Contributions by), James D. Faubion (Contributions by), Neni Panourgia (Contributions by), Tania Ahmad (Contributions by), Cymene Howe (Contributions by), Petra Rethmann (Contributions by), John Postill (Contributions by), Marianne Maeckelbergh (Contributions by), Alex Khasnabish (Contributions by), Athanasiou Athena (Contributions by)

9780253023117

Paperback / softback, published 3 October 2016

286 pages, 3 b&w illus. - 3 Illustrations, black and white
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.535 kg

What drives people to take to the streets in protest? What is their connection to other activists and how does that change over time? How do seemingly spontaneous activist movements emerge, endure, and evolve, especially when they lack a leader and concrete agenda? How does one analyze a changing political movement immersed in contingency? Impulse to Act addresses these questions incisively, examining a wide range of activist movements from the December 2008 protests in Greece to the recent chto delat in Russia. Contributors in the first section of this volume highlight the affective dimensions of political movements, charting the various ways in which participants coalesce around and belong to collectives of resistance. The potent agency of movements is highlighted in the second section, where scholars show how the emerging actions and critiques of protesters help disrupt authoritative political structures. Responding to the demands of the field today, the novel approaches to protest movements in Impulse to Act offer new ways to reengage with the traditional cornerstones of political anthropology.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Resistance Reconsidered / Othon Alexandrakis
Part I: Affect as Political Condition
1. Being and Doing Politics: Moral Ontologies and Ethical Ways of Knowing at the End of the Cold War / Jessica Greenberg
2. The Affective Echoes of an Overwhelming Life: The Demand for Legal Recognition and the Vicious Cycle of Desire, in the Case of Queer Activism in Istanbul, Turkey / Eirine Avramopoulou
3. Emergenc(i)es in the Fields: Affective Composition and Counter-Camps Against the Exploitation of Migrant Farm Labor in Italy / Irene Peano
4. Cosmologicopolitics: Vitalistic Cosmology Meets Biopower / James D. Faubion
5. Surreal Capitalism and the Dialectical Economies of Precarity / Neni Panourgiá