Introduction: On the last word; quite on the contrary, such
neutrality and universality, far from being
Political Anthropology unquestionable assets, are rather dangerous
liabilities, threatening us in our very human-
Arpad Szakolczai and Paul O’Connor ity. It is from this perspective that Political
Anthropology returns to modernity: not
Political Anthropology, in the sense used in accepting it as a starting point or the culmi-
this Encyclopedia, is not a subfield of anthro- nation of human development, rather posing
pology as a discipline but rather a way to the question of what this contemporary global
explore the anthropological underpinnings modern world does to us as human beings: to
of politics, or the ‘pre-political’, in the broad- what extent, and in what way, does it threaten
est possible sense of the term. Contemporary us in our very humanity, among others by dis-
social scientific enquiry is dominated by a locating us both from nature and culture.
remarkably narrow range of concerns, con- Furthermore, Political Anthropology is a
strued using a limited set of paradigms that genuinely inter-disciplinary field, consisting
reify specifically modern forms of knowledge of three main and four additional axes, or
and subjectivity and make them the measure dimensions. The first of these is genealogy,
of the world. To interpret social phenomena in the Nietzsche-Foucauldian sense, but also
through the paradigm of the rational, self- incorporating Weberian comparative histori-
choosing economic actor, or that of human- cal sociology, as Max Weber can be consid-
ity’s advancement towards freedom and ered a genealogist, much inspired by the
equality by means of progressive critique, or work of Nietzsche. It is into this ‘Weberian-
that of societal development through techno- genealogical’ lineage that the work of the
logical innovation and the rational refinement most important followers of Weber’s his-
of public policy, is to retroject the ideologi- torical method, like Norbert Elias, Franz
cal perspectives of modernity back onto the Borkenau, Eric Voegelin (at least for his ear-
society which created them. As a result, lier work), and Reinhart Koselleck belong –
social enquiry becomes trapped in a hallu- reading Weber’s work in its proper context,
cinogenic bubble of the near-contemporary, before the disaster of Parsons hit sociology.
and vast swathes of human experience that The second axis, of course, is social or
do not fit within the paradigms of rational cultural anthropology, though understood
choice, progressive critique, or technocratic in a manner different from standard disci-
rationalisation are rendered invisible. Yet we plinary historiography, focusing on some of
cannot hope to understand our current soci- the mavericks of the discipline instead of its
ety without understanding its relation to the canonised figures, who often rather trans-
past (including the deep past) from which it pose modernist interpretive frameworks to
emerged and which persists within it, and the study of all other cultures. It turned out
to the human being – Anthropos – as both a that literally all the anthropological terms
value-creating and meaning-seeking creature. that we found central for social understanding
Political Anthropology therefore looks (liminality, trickster, imitation, schismogen-
beyond modernity in order to deepen the esis, gift-relations, participation) were devel-
self-understanding of modernity. Political oped by anthropologists who worked outside
Anthropology offers an outlook which, in the mainstream, in isolation, and mostly in a
line with the term ‘anthropology’, starts not completely marginalised position: Arnold van
with ‘science’ and ‘objectivity’, but with us Gennep, Marcel Mauss, Paul Radin, Gregory
humans, who furthermore do not live in the Bateson, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, but also Victor
‘universe’, but here on Earth, and furthermore Turner, René Girard, and Colin Turnbull (for
not just ‘on’ Earth, as Tim Ingold argues, details, see Szakolczai and Thomassen, From
but immersed inside its nature, asking thus Anthropology to Social Theory: Rethinking
the question of what it means to be human. the Social Sciences). In fact, and as a most
Anthropology in this sense is inevitably striking phenomenon of modern intellec-
‘political’, in the classical Aristotelian sense tual history, the four arguably most impor-
of man being a zoon politikon, or a ‘politi- tant classical anthropologists, van Gennep,
cal animal’, and it is in this capacity that we Mauss, Radin, and Bateson, did not teach one
need to understand our involvement in and minute in a standard anthropology depart-
with Nature. Starting with participation also ment. It is by no means evident that it had to
implies that scientific neutrality cannot offer
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2 elgar encyclopedia of political anthropology
be this way: Mauss was the designated heir pre-history, up to the late Palaeolithic period.
of Durkheim; van Gennep a university friend For it, the cave art of Chauvet, Lascaux, and
of Mauss and one of the first to have writ- Altamira is a kind of obligatory starting point
ten an anthropology dissertation in France; – not to deny the importance of previous
Radin one of the first PhD students of Boas developments, especially concerning burial
(practically all the others became, upon com- rituals and the rise of language, but arguing
pletion, professors and founding department that the givenness of the kind, quality, and
heads of major American universities); and character of such art is a necessary departure
Bateson one of the first Cambridge anthropol- for understanding the dynamics of human
ogy PhDs. Each was supposed to have a red history: any claim that before a relatively
carpet laid before them – and that they failed recent time, whether Egypt, China, Greece,
to live up to this promise was not due to any or Rome, humans were ‘primitive barbarians’
shortcomings of theirs but rather to the power is unacceptable.
and originality of their ideas, which went The fifth axis is comparative mythology,
beyond routine disciplinary commonplaces. a crucial complement to both anthropology
The concepts developed by these anthropolo- and archaeology. Some of the most important
gists have in common an understanding of works on the figure of the trickster, for exam-
culture as not a static structure but a dynamic ple, were done by comparative mythologists
process of the formation, transmission, and such as Dumézil and Kerényi. Kerényi’s work
transformation of cultures; moreover, they also extended to archaeology, but the bring-
afford ways of thinking about those experi- ing together of archaeology and mythology is
ential, non-conceptual dimensions of culture still a task to be achieved, overcoming disci-
that are central to both sociality and meaning, plinary entrenchment, with philologists deni-
but which mainstream theoretical approaches grating the excavation of material objects,
frequently overlook. while archaeologists talk in similarly deroga-
The third main axis is classical political tory language about ‘mere words’. Dumézil
philosophy, or philosophical anthropology. was also a main source of Foucault’s method,
The central, towering figure here is Plato, especially concerning his use of the term
understood not through neo-Kantianism, or ‘structure’.
German idealism in general, as an ‘idealist’ Sixth, Political Anthropology is also inter-
but rather as a political realist and a diagnos- ested in using works of art, and the history of
tician on the spot of the collapse of Athenian art, for social understanding, including both
democracy, much along the lines of the ideas images and words. A crucial milestone figure
of Eric Voegelin and Michel Foucault, who here is Aby Warburg, founder of the modern
here are again particularly close. But Political history of art as a discipline, considered an
Anthropology also relies on the work of anthropologist by Giorgio Agamben, who was
Aristotle and the pre-Socratics, instead of also a maverick: his supervisor, Carl Justi, a
playing one or the other against the rest. As for typical ‘German professor’, never understood
modern philosophy, Political Anthropology his work, and thus access to the university
ignores the main line of modern rationalism, was barred to him. But Warburg did not fare
from Bacon and Descartes, through Locke, better with Ernst Cassirer, the then-rising star
Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, up to contemporary of academic neo-Kantianism, who did not
analytical philosophy, relying instead, on the want to understand him, as he realised that
one hand, on the great ‘maverick’ philosophers following Warburg would imply forsaking
(Pascal, Vico, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche) the academic knowledge he had gained thus
and, on the other, the hermeneutical tradition far. In fact, we do need to dismiss all those
(Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Gadamer). The two parts of our ‘rationalistic’ learning that only
lines were brought together by Heidegger, and conform to the commonplaces of modern-ism
among twentieth-century philosophical work, if we want – as we must – to understand the
Political Anthropology also relies on the phe- character and dynamics of the world in which
nomenology of Husserl and the linguistic phi- we now live. An anthropologist who is very
losophy of Wittgenstein. close to Political Anthropology as meant here
Among the other axes, the most impor- is Tim Ingold, the most important and influen-
tant is archaeology: Political Anthropology is tial anthropologist of our times in Europe, and
keen to push the time horizon for understand- perhaps even beyond. His programmatic 2013
ing the dynamics of the present back into book Making was originally entitled ‘The
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introduction: on political anthropology 3
Four As’, implying anthropology, archaeol- supposedly universally valid and world-
ogy, art, and architecture; and even further, saving precepts. The heroes of Dickens and
while being most hostile to standard academic Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann and Hermann
‘rationalistic’ philosophy, in recent years he Broch, and the other great modern novelists
came to realise the importance of certain phi- lead us much further into understanding than
losophers for ‘his’ anthropology. the most well-wishing normative political
Among works of art, of particular impor- philosophies. No book of moral philosophy
tance is the use of novelistic insights for can produce the cathartic effect of a novel by
social-anthropological understanding. In this Dickens, involving not just some ‘emotions’
Encyclopedia, several entries are devoted to but one’s whole being; and these novels are
novelists. There is a particular reason for this, given, out there for everyone, not requiring
apart from the evident connections between research funds for data collection. Instead of
Max Weber and Thomas Mann, or Dostoevsky racking one’s brain in theoretical system con-
and Russian Orthodox theology. It is because struction, one only needs to walk the way that
novels offer a unique route to anthropological is already there as a gift.
understanding, especially given the increas- Finally, certain theological perspectives
ing ‘theatricalisation’ of contemporary soci- are also important for Political Anthropology
ety, a flip side of modern ‘rationalism’ – a – although this understanding might not
phenomenon that includes cinema, television, be shared by everyone practising Political
and of course now the Internet as sources of Anthropology in the sense expressed here.
ever more unlimited imitation. Indeed, a cen- These include classical theology, especially
tral concern of practically every major mod- St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, but
ern novelist has been with understanding their also contemporary, especially orthodox
society, especially its pathologies and incipi- Trinitarian theology, with its focus on the his-
ent crises, through their art. toricity of the divine.
Of course, the novelistic manner of social With over 130 entries from leading schol-
understanding differs from that of main- ars around the world, many of them the prin-
stream sociology or indeed anthropology – cipal authorities in their respective fields,
certainly not, however, to its detriment. The this Encyclopedia aims to provide a compre-
point can be best illustrated through the link hensive overview of Political Anthropology.
between rituals and myths, a major concern Biographical entries cover key thinkers
for anthropologists since the classics of mod- from each of the axes of enquiry outlined
ern anthropology. Myths offer understand- above – from Aristotle to Agamben, Mauss
ing not through some presumed veneration to McIntyre, Vico to van Gennep, Weber to
of their heroes, especially if they are gods, Warburg. The number of such entries in the
but because they present complex characters Encyclopedia is due to a major method-logical
who are known by every member of a given guiding principle: understanding human real-
culture, bringing alive ideas that otherwise ity requires not so much the rigorous applica-
would remain mere normative prescriptions tion of disembedded concepts as the in-depth
or theoretical speculations. The same applies understanding of the work of thinkers who
to the great modern novelists, or for that mat- then can be followed as guides for under-
ter, the plays of Shakespeare and Molière: standing. Topical entries discuss the central
knowing about the main characters of these ideas of these – and other – thinkers, espe-
works does not imply a display of book- cially as they have been developed in Political
ish knowledge, manifesting membership of Anthropology, such as liminality, trickster,
a cultural elite, as somebody like Bourdieu imitation, schismogenesis, charisma, biopoli-
seems to argue, but rather is a condition of tics, genealogy, and the civilising process,
possibility for the in-depth understanding of as well as some of the principal concerns
a culture or civilisation (the modern world) or applications of Political Anthropology,
where similarly shared Christian stories have including boundaries, critique, technology,
lost their hold. Purely conceptual explana- nations and nationalism, theatricalisation
tion and normative theorising do not suffice; and the public sphere, revolutions, globalisa-
these are bound to become lifeless ideology tion, home, collective memory, political ide-
or mere rhetoric, whether liberal, communi- ologies from liberalism to Bolshevism, and
tarian, or socialist, no matter how hard they many more. To aid further exploration, each
try to distinguish themselves by formulating entry is cross-referenced to other entries with
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4 elgar encyclopedia of political anthropology
which it is thematically related and includes a as those suggested by art history, comparative
list of key works on the topic for further read- mythology, and archaeology. It also includes
ing. In line with the format of this series, cita- the types of experience and understanding
tions are strictly limited. In particular, classic encapsulated in the ideas developed by mav-
works familiar to every student of a topic, and erick anthropologists through their study of
those that have been cited elsewhere in the non-Western and ‘primitive’ societies, over-
Encyclopedia, are typically excluded from laid by the development of those forms of
the list of references at the end of each entry. subjectivity and knowledge whose emergence
No encyclopaedia can pretend complete- was traced by the key reflexive historical
ness. We tried to include as many entries as sociologists in their genealogical enquiries.
possible, given our thematic profile and the Such a widening of our intellectual horizons
overall word limit. Some planned topical is particularly apposite at this time of multi-
entries were not written, as they were incor- ple ecological, political, social, and economic
porated into biographical entries: for instance, crises, which have their common source in
gift-relations into Marcel Mauss; sacrifice the distinctively modern refusal to acknowl-
into Mauss and René Girard; ritual into edge the existence of limits. This refusal of
Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner; and limits has its epistemological corollary in
participation into Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Still a methodical blindness to large domains of
others, though commissioned, for various rea- human existence and experience. Contrary
sons were not delivered. We are particularly to the self-mythologising that claims that we
sad about not being able to include, for diverse moderns, alone of humanity, have ascended
reasons, entries on Enrico Castelli, Mary from the swamps of ignorance and supersti-
Douglas, Georges Dumézil, Mircea Eliade, tion to achieve sound, accurate, true knowl-
Karl Mannheim, Jan Patočka, Frances Yates, edge of reality, today one must ask: Does our
empathy, empire, experience, homelessness, hyper-modern society systematically discon-
temporality and crisis, transformation, walk- nect us from many aspects of reality,? Does
ing, or a stand-alone entry on religion. it methodically distort our perceptions? Does
Following the terminological discus- it blind us to truths that our ‘primitive’ ances-
sion in Political Anthropology as Method tors readily grasped? And, indeed, does it sys-
(Szakolczai, 2023), in this volume the term tematically change and distort human nature
‘Political Anthropology’ will be capitalised, itself?
in order to distinguish its meaning as used here These questions, which are among the most
from ‘political anthropology’ as a subfield of important that can be posed in the face of our
‘anthropology’ as an academic discipline; contemporary reality, will not appear radical,
and the words ‘methodology’ and ‘methodo- or even surprising, to any informed observer
logical’ will be hyphenated as ‘method-logic’ of current debates about virtual reality, misin-
and ‘method-logical’, taking inspiration from formation, deep fakes, transhumanism, or the
Michel Serres, in order to mark the distinc- singularity; or technological developments
tion from the mistaken idea that the social, in AI, machine learning, gene-editing, syn-
political, and human sciences should follow a thetic biology, human-computer interfaces,
presumed ‘scientific methodology’. and so on. Yet they cannot be posed, let alone
Political Anthropology, as encapsulated answered, within the dominant paradigms
in this volume, can be viewed as an effort to of contemporary social science. A simplistic
re-integrate insights, and re-open modes of empiricism, devoted to the accumulation of
experience and understanding, that have been ever more statistical or qualitative data, can
marginalised or suppressed by the dominant do no more than replicate dominant cultural
theoretical and methodological paradigms of and ideological constructs. Rational-choice
contemporary social science, which follow, in theory and econometric approaches repro-
an often quite slavish manner, the presumed duce the logic of division and substitution,
methods of the universalising sciences, ignor- which is one of the preeminent distortions
ing the fact that human life on planet Earth is of modern thought. Finally, the proliferating
not something ‘universal’, and thus requires modes of critical theory – post-structural-
different ‘ways’ for knowledge, explanation, ist, post-Marxist, post-colonialist, feminist,
and understanding. This includes the anthro- Habermasian, and others – through their anti-
pological insights of classical political philos- essentialist drive to deconstruct and discredit
ophy and the great modern novelists, as well every inherited form of culture, systematically
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introduction: on political anthropology 5
work to dissolve the only grounds on which the theoretical constructions of modernity by
we might stand to gain perspective on moder- adopting perspectives and approaches from
nity. The existential questions posed by the anthropology, historical sociology, archaeol-
multiplying contradictions of hyper-modern ogy and comparative linguistics, comparative
societies are simultaneously sociological and religion and mythology, art, and imaginative
philosophical; they require us to consider literature, above all novels – and through an
the relation of social structures and arrange- attentiveness to the philosophical and cultural
ments to a ‘reality’ and ‘human nature’ that legacy of Western civilisation, as well as the
– contra social constructionism – are ante- world’s other great civilisational and spiritual
rior to them. This requires an approach such traditions.
as Political Anthropology, which de-centres
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