Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia

Bruce Kapferer

Published by Berghahn Books 2011

Legends of People, Myths of State

Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia

Bruce Kapferer

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857455178

Overview
Contents

About this book

The civil war in Sri Lanka and the part that nationalism seemed to play in it inspired the writing of this book some twenty-three years ago. The argument was developed through a comparative analysis of nationalism in Sri Lanka with the author’s native Australia. At the time this constituted an innovative approach to comparison in anthropology, as well as to nationalism and its possibilities. It was not based on differences but on the way in which perspectives from within the two nationalisms, when seen side-by-side, could present an understanding of their implication in producing the violence of war, racism, and social exclusion. The book has lost none of its importance and urgency as proven by the chapters in the Appendix, written by top scholars working in Sri Lanka and in Australia. These contributions bring together new material and critically explore the book’s themes and their continued relevance to the various trajectories in nationalist processes since the first publication of the book.

Author / Editor information

Bruce Kapferer is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Bergen. He has held academic positions in Zambia, Manchester, Adelaide, London, and Queensland and carried out extensive fieldwork in Zambia, Sri Lanka, India, Australia, and South Africa.

Reviews

“…this brilliant book [draws] contrasts worthy of heavy thought and heavier debate.” · American Anthropologist

“This edition of the book adds insightful new essays by other scholars of nationalism, which cogently situate the legacy of the work… All of the appended essays update and fortify this original text, which is worth revisiting.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“This provocative study of the political culture of nationalism in Sri Lanka and Australia … is one of the few genuinely comparative studies in anthropology [and] in taking up such an important question as nationalism it reminds us that truly relevant anthropology questions deep-seated cultural beliefs, including our own.” · Oceania

“This is a book about equality and inequality, about the symbols and the ideologies of nation and state, and about violence committed in the name of religions of peace, Buddhism and Hinduism. Kapferer illuminates the modern world—and its horrors.” · Peter Worsley, author of The Third World

“By examining the ‘logic of ontology’ manifest in sorcery rites and in ethnic violence, Kapferer gives the book a dual character: it is at once a study of myth, evil, violence and an exercise in the comparative anthropology of nationalism. It is a provocatively ambitious work…” · Times Literary Supplement

“The problems addressed in this book are those of modern nationalism, a political development of European origin that now has a worldwide effect…Kapferer’s writing is fluid and powerful…[His work] is an excellent example of what comparative anthropology can be.” · Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface to the New and Revised Edition Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface to the Paperback Reissue Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Publicly Available Download PDF	xxxvii
1 Cultures of Nationalism: Political Cosmology and the Passions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1 Evil and the State Sinhalese Nationalism, Violence, and the Power of Hierarchy
2 Ethnic Violence and the Force of History in Legend Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
3 Evil, Power, and the State Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
4 Ideological Practice, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Passions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Part 2 People Against the State: Australian Nationalism and Egalitarian Individualism
5 When the World Crumbles and the Heavens Fall In: War, Death, and the Creation of Nat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
6 But the Band Played “Waltzing Maltilda” National Ceremonial and the Anatomy of Egalitarianism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
7 Ethnicity and Intolerance: Egalitarian Nationalism and Its Political Practice Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
8 Nationalism, Tradition, and Political Culture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Appendices
Legends of People, Myths of State and the Current Context: By Way of Introduction Bruce Kapferer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Appendix 1 In the Wake of Legends: The Need for an Ontological Understanding of Nationalism and Power David Rampton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Appendix 2 Violence, Evil, and the State in Sri Lanka: Revisiting an Ontological Approach to Sinhalese Nationalism Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Appendix 3 Empty Spaces and the Multiple Modernities of Nationalism Rohan Bastin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
Appendix 4 The Social Genesis of Anzac Nationalism Barry Morris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	339
Appendix 5 The Australian Society of the State: Egalitarian Ideologies and New Directions in Exclusionary Practice Bruce Kapferer and Barry Morris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	363
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	395

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 446
Keywords: Anthropology (General); Peace and Conflict Studies; Political and Economic Anthropology

eBook

Published: December 1, 2011
ISBN: 9780857455178