Authority and power in comparative perspective

Presentation

Authority, a major theme in political philosophy, seems like a mystery (or a mystification) in our modern societies, where its disappearance is deplored (or celebrated), at the very moment when "power relations" seem to impose themselves in certain theories as the key opening all the doors of sociological knowledge, through its infinite capacities for unveiling the hidden interests at the heart of every social relationship.

However, after an in-depth examination, bringing together places as diverse as China, India, New Caledonia, New Guinea, the Philippines, Russia, Tunisia and Wallis, societies with political regimes ranging from empire to democracy to the "stateless society", and religions from Islam to shamanism, authority is revealed as a necessary and consubstantial dimension of social life, articulating and ordering the fundamental values that govern collective thought and action.

By placing each form of authority observed within the whole of each culture, this work not only draws certain conclusions as to the nature of authority, but also invites general methodological considerations by highlighting the impasses of "potestative anthropologies" for which only power relations are at the foundation of social order.

Directors

Stéphane Vibert holds a PhD in social anthropology. His research focuses on the notion of "community" in the social sciences and in contemporary societies, as well as on the theoretical and epistemological understanding of holism, through a questioning of collective identities: nationalism, communitarianism, multiculturalism, republicanism.

David Gibeault is a researcher in anthropology. His work focuses on kinship and religion in peasant communities in central China.

387 pages
16 x 24 cm
Publication: 12/12/2017
ISBN: 9782858312481