Civil Society: Challenging Western Models

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Overview

Between kinship ties on the one hand and the state on the other, human beings experience a diversity of social relationships and groupings which in modern western thought have come to be gathered under the label 'civil society'. A liberal-individualist model of civil society has become fashionable in recent years, but what can such a term mean in the late twentieth century?
Civil Society argues that civil society should not be studied as a separate, 'private' realm clearly ...
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Overview

Between kinship ties on the one hand and the state on the other, human beings experience a diversity of social relationships and groupings which in modern western thought have come to be gathered under the label 'civil society'. A liberal-individualist model of civil society has become fashionable in recent years, but what can such a term mean in the late twentieth century?
Civil Society argues that civil society should not be studied as a separate, 'private' realm clearly separated in opposition to the state; nor should it be confined to the institutions of the 'voluntary' or 'non-governmental' sector. A broader understanding of civil society involves the investigation of everyday social practices, often elusive power relations and the shared moralities that hold communities together. By drawing on case materials from a range of contemporary societies, including the US, Britain, four of the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle and Far East, Civil Society demonstrates what anthropology contributes to debates taking place throughout the social sciences; adding up to an exciting renewal of the agenda for political anthropology.
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Product Details

Meet the Author

Chris Hann is Professor of Social Anthropology and Dean of Social Sciences, University of Kent; Elizabeth Dunn is a Doctoral candidate at John Hopkins University, Baltimore
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Table of Contents

List of contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: political society and civil anthropology 1
1 Money, morality and modes of civil society among American Mormons 27
2 How Ernest Gellner got mugged on th streets of London, or: civil society, the media and the quality of life 50
3 Anti-semitism and fear of the public sphere in a post-totalitarian society: East Germany 64
4 The shifting meanings of civil and civic society in Poland 79
5 Bringing civil society to an uncivilised place: citizenship regimes in Russia's Arctic frontier 99
6 The social life of projects: importing civil society to Albania 121
7 Civic culture and Islam in urban Turkey 143
8 Gender, state and civil society in Jordan and Syria 155
9 The deployment of civil energy in Indonesia: assessment of an authentic solution 178
10 Community values and state cooptation: civil society in the Sichuan countryside 199
11 Making citizens in postwar Japan: national and local perspectives 222
Index 242
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