Power and the Self

This book, first published in 2002, analyses the ways in which power is experienced by individuals as agents and objects.

Jeannette Marie Mageo (Edited by)

9780521808392, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 January 2002

234 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.48 kg

'… lucid and engaging, theoretically informed, and grounded in either ethnographic research or personal experiences … constitutes yet another useful contribution to anthropological understanding from members of the psychological anthropology clan.' The Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute

Power and the Self, first published in 2002, deals with an important but neglected topic: the ways in which power is experienced by individuals, both as agents and as objects of the exercise of power. Each contributor presents a series of case studies drawn from a variety of cultural contexts, including the analysis of the appeal of Japanese superhero toys for American children; the conditions that lead to dehumanising treatment of patients in an American nursing home; the experiences of a Turkish immigrant woman in the Netherlands; a contribution relating theories about the capacity to commit genocidal violence to 'everyday forms of violence', and other cases from New Guinea and Samoa. The introduction provides a readable historical review and synthesis of the theoretical ideas that provide the context for the work presented in the book.

Foreword Gananath Obeyesekere
1. Introduction: Theorizing power and the self Jeannette Mageo and Bruce Knauft
Part I. Power Differentials in the US: 2. The genocidal continuum: peace time crimes Nancy Scheper-Hughes
3. Intimate power, public selves: Bakhtin's space of authoring William S. Lachicotte
Part II. Transitional Psychologies: 4. Playing with power: morphing toys and transforming heroes in kids' mass culture Ann Allison
5. Consciousness of the state and the experience of self: the runaway daughter of a Turkish guest worker Katherine Ewing
Part III. Colonial Encounters: Power/History/Self: 6. Spirit, self, and power: the making of colonial experience in Papua New Guinea Douglas Dalton
7. Self models and sexual agency Jeannette Mageo
Part IV. Reading Power against the Grain: 8. Eager subjects, reluctant powers: the irrelevance of ideology in a secret New Guinea male cult Harriet Whitehead
9. Feminist emotions Catherine Lutz.

Subject Areas: The self, ego, identity, personality [JMS], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Cultural studies [JFC]