Culture Troubles
Politics and the Interpretation of Meaning
Published on 22. November 2005
Book
Hardback
340 pages
978-1-85065-780-4 (ISBN)
Description
Chabal and Daloz's argument is one based on an analysis of culture understood as a system of meanings rather than as values. Hence, the authors offer a methodology that grounds political analysis in the interpretation of what 'makes sense' to the people concerned. Their approach, which resists the tyranny of particularisms but instead proposes a different 'scientific' method, draws upon a wide range of political, sociological and anthropological sources. It demonstrates how an interpretative framework can be heuristically fruitful in the study of politics. Chabal and Daloz illustrate the analytical acuity of this method with a comparative study of the state and political representation in three very different settings: France, Nigeria and Sweden.
Reviews / Votes
'In Chabal's and Daloz's extended and detailed critique of the whole field of comparative politics we have virtually for the first time a general approach that is neither mired in the abstractions of grand theory ... nor overly concerned with ethnocentric normative judgements. [...] The result is in my view, a major work, thorough, comprehensive, and genuinely ground-breaking: a treatise in the true sense of the word.' --Clifford Geertz, The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 'An original, timely, lucid and challenging book.' --Peter Burke, University of CambridgeMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
ISBN-13
978-1-85065-780-4 (9781850657804)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
PATRICK CHABAL studied politics at Harvard, Columbia and Cambridge universities and is now Professor of Lusophone African Studies at King's College London. JEAN-PASCAL DALOZ, who is responsible for the IPSA Research Committee on Political Elites and the ISA Research Committee on Comparative Sociology, is a senior CNRS Research Fellow at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Bordeaux (CERVL).