In the Event

Toward an Anthropology of Generic Moments

Lotte Meinert, Bruce Kapferer, Lotte Meinert, Bruce Kapferer

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781782388890
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782388906
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Events are "generative moments" in at least three senses: events are created by and condense larger-scale social structures; as moments, they spark and give rise to new social processes; in themselves, events may also serve to analyze social situations and relationships. Based on ethnographic studies from around the world—varying from rituals and meetings over protests and conflicts to natural disasters and management—this volume analyzes generative moments through events that hold the key to understanding larger social situations. These events—including the Ashura ritual in Bahrain, social cleavages in South Africa, a Buddhist cave in Nepal, drought in Burkina Faso, an earthquake in Pakistan, the cartoon crisis in Denmark, corporate management at Bang & Olufsen, protest meetings in Europe, and flooding and urban citizenship in Mozambique—are not simply destructive disasters, crises, and conflicts, but also generative and constitutive of the social.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction: In the Event—toward an Anthropology of Generic Moments
• Chapter 1 ‘Ashura in Bahrain: Analyses of an Analytical Event
• Chapter 2 ‘Burying the ANC’: Post-apartheid Ambiguities at the University of Limpopo, South Africa
• Chapter 3 A Topographic Event: A Buddhist Lama’s Perception of a Pilgrimage Cave
• Chapter 4 The Outburst: Climate Change, Gender Relations, and Situational Analysis
• Chapter 5 Events and Effects: Intensive Transnationalism among Pakistanis in Denmark
• Chapter 6 The Cartoon Controversy: Creating Muslims in a Danish Setting
• Chapter 7 Studying Human Resource Management: Beyond Corporate Consensus and Colonial Conflicts
• Chapter 8 Figurations of the Future: On the Form and Temporality of Protests among Left Radical Activists in Europe
• Chapter 9 Mimesis of the State: From Natural Disaster to Urban Citizenship on the Outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique
• About the Editors
• Index