The State and Modernity as Anthropological Topics

International Social Science Journal, 2010

The Nature and Development of the Modern State

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This paper is aimed at analysing, from a philosophical and sociological point of view, the process of Western modernization in terms of a critical social theory. In order to do that, I will criticize the historical-sociological blindness characterizing contemporary theories of modernity (as in those of Weber and Habermas). The historical-sociological blindness regarding the reconstruction of the process of Western modernization is basically characterized by the separation between European cultural modernity and European social-economic modernization, to the deletion of colonialism as basis and consequence of the process of Western modernization, which leads to the idea that European modernity is a self-referential, self-subsistent and endogenous process of development. The central argument of this paper is that the theories of modernity cannot provide a normative paradigm for critical social theory based on cultural modernity because of this historical-sociological blindness. Therefore, the elaboration of a normative concept for critical social theory should start by unveiling, denouncing and deconstructing this historical-sociological blindness of the theories of modernity. KEYWORDS: Modernity. Modernization. Colonialism. Historical-sociological blindness. Decoloniality. RESUMO: Critica-se no artigo a cegueira histórico-sociológica assumida pelas teorias da modernidade contemporâneas (por exemplo, em Weber e Habermas), com o objetivo de tematizar filosófico-sociologicamente o processo de modernização ocidental em termos de uma teoria crítica da sociedade. A cegueira histórico-sociológica acerca da reconstrução do processo de

2007

International Political Anthropology , 2018

This essay confronts two orthodoxies at the heart of the modernity debate. The first is that modernity, which supposedly originated from the West, is a single and universal historical development. The assumption therefore is that any genuine modernity elsewhere must proceed from aping the structuration of western modernity. The second orthodoxy challenges the first, and coalesces around the idea of multiple modernities, which do not share the historical contours of western modernity. Yet, these modernities supposedly take their initiatives from the original source in the West. On the contrary, I will argue that these orthodoxies ignore a critical fact of global history: The concept of the modern was shaped and reshaped within a multilateral framework of confrontations and conflicts amongst cultures and societies, which enabled each society to creatively respond and adapt itself to the changes it confronted. I will use the Yorùbá concept of ò. làjú as a conceptual foil to reconfigure the understanding of this multilateral modernity. With ò. làjú, we arrive at the conclusion that both Europe and non-Europe are complicit in the formation and configuration of what it means to be modern. It is only from this premise that the foundation of multiple modernities can properly be erected. It is also from this premise that various societies can take charge of the elements of social change as well as the power and knowledge dynamics involved in it. For many societies, modernity is the blunt impact of other people's history compressed and objectified in the form of hard and indigestible lumps of physical and social processes. Studying the adaptation of societies to mo-dernity is therefore not merely a matter of confronting items that we label modern or traditional, but of understanding the confrontation between YSR 05 afolayan EN.indd 85 7/3/2016 3:12:14 PM

British Academy eBooks, 2009

I WHEN WE TRACE the genealogy of a concept, we uncover the different ways in which it may have been used in earlier times. We thereby equip ourselves with a means of reflecting critically on how it is currently understood. With these considerations in mind, I attempt in what follows to sketch a genealogy of the modern state. Before embarking on this project, however, I need to make two cautionary remarks about the limitations of its scope. I assume in the first place that the only method by which we can hope confidently to identify the views of specific writers about the concept of the state will be to examine the precise circumstances in which they invoke and discuss the term state. I consequently focus as much as possible on how this particular word came to figure in successive debates about the nature of public power. The other limitation I need to signal is that I confine myself exclusively to Anglophone traditions of thought. I do so in part because I need to bring my historical materials under some kind of control, but mainly because it seems to me that any study of the changing vocabularies in which moral or political concepts are formulated can only be fruitfully pursued by examining the histories of individual linguistic communities. To attempt a broader analysis would be to assume that such terms as lo stato, l'État and Der Staat express the same concept as the term state, and this would be to presuppose what would have to be shown. Hence the seemingly arbitrary restriction of my historical gaze.

While the diffusion of modernity and the spread of development schemes may bring prosperity, optimism and opportunity for some, for others it has brought poverty, a deterioration in quality of life and has given rise to violence. This collection brings an anthropological perspective to bear on understanding the diverse modernities we face in the contemporary world. It provides a critical review of interpretations of development and modernity, supported by rigorous case studies from regions as diverse as Guatemala, Sri Lanka, West Africa and contemporary Europe.

History and Theory, 2020

(This review, while positive, is best read with others of the book by younger scholars, also posted here.) This book takes an ethnographic approach to its topic by endeavoring to observe how social and disciplinary subjects shaped by modernity go on to constitute modern worlds. Specifically, it attempts to "explore modernity as a contradictory and checkered historical-cultural entity and category as well as a contingent and contended process and condition" (1). Most of the subjects considered are intellectuals and academic disciplines (specifically history and anthropology), although the argument occasionally focuses on artists as well. The book particularly recognizes and analyzes the ambiguities, ambivalences, and contradictions generated within modernity not as mistakes or gaps like so many potholes to be fixed over time, but as constitutive of the modern landscape itself. This accepting acknowledgment, in turn, stands central to the book's endeavor to resist the teleological paradigms inherent in many modern metaphors regarding roads that must be traveled to move from what is backward to what is forward, from a superseded past to a promising future. Central to the volume-and its most original contribution-are various deliberations on the productions of time and space by various subjects. To be clear, by "time" the book means history and temporality whereas "space" suggests tradition and culture. It resists the naturalization of modern constructs such as secularized time and cultural traditions, and forces them under an analytic lens. Critical to these investigations is Saurabh Dube's appropriately insistent claim that these temporal and spatial regimes can exist in tandem and coevally, even when they are seemingly in contradiction. Among other outcomes, the volume prompts further reflection on the manner in which historiography plays a role in the formation of nationalist and modern subjectivities among nonhistorians. This essay seeks to think through the history of history as a discipline emerging during the coalescence of a hegemonic European episteme and the emergence of a popularly embraced scientism. Despite its roots in Europe long preceding modernity and its parallels in South Asia preceding British rule, history underwent a transformation when inflected through European modernity, especially the influence of empirical science paradigms. Although its emergence as a discipline promoted and employed by both the empire and the nation-state created professional historians, an expanding public sphere has meant that research into its role in fashioning modern subjectivities (including nationalist ones) must consider its reshaping and redeployment by those resisting European-originated modernity and promoting alternative modernities.

The Modernisation Theory can be viewed as a theory that encompasses many different disciplines as it illustrates a descriptive and explanatory framework of the processes of transformations a traditional or undeveloped society experiences as it moves to a modern state through the processes of economic increases and growth, and social, political and cultural changes. This simply means that it attempts to highlight how society progresses, which factors affect this progress, and how the society may possibly react to such a transformation. Here, the underlying principle of the theory is the understanding that modernisation is a complete social transformation and development connected mainly with economic development, where these social transformations constitute a pattern of universality, however the stress among the relationship of modernisation and development deviates from whether modernisation “is the social process of which development is the economic component” (Bernstein, 1971) or whether development, modernization and industrialization are viewed as “terms of decreasing conceptual generality” (Bernstein, 1971). The Discussion to follow will further critically discuss the Modernisation Theory, give insight to some of the theory’s major proponents; give a brief discussion on a few branches of modernisation; illustrate some influential ethnographic examples of modernisation; as well as give a description of the theory’s criticisms and values.

2017

This paper criticizes the historical-sociological blindness found in contemporary theories of modernity (as in those of Weber and Habermas) in order both to construct a sociological model for the process of Western modernization and to formulate a normative notion of cultural modernity which can favor the development of a critical social theory which is correlatively sociological and philosophical. The historical-sociological blindness regarding the theoretical-political reconstruction of the process of Western modernization is basically characterized by the separation between European cultural modernity and European social-economic modernization, which leads to the notion that European culture is not directly linked to social and economic modernization. Likewise, Western modernization is fundamentally an autonomous and endogenous constitutive process, bearing no correlation with other cultures-societies, as seen in the lack of references to the fact of colonialism. Such a separatio...

The Oxford Handbook of History and International Relations, 2023

This chapter shows that versions of 'modernization theory' still haunt International Relations (IR)'s understanding of 'modernity'. 'Modernization theory' posits a teleology of political development wherein Western societies lead the way and others follow in their footsteps. It is an understanding that was foundational to the discipline, and despite having come under much criticism in the intervening decades, this understanding has not been rejected by IR. IR historical narratives, whether about the emergence of the modern state or the modern international system, inevitably reproduce this teleology, and critical scholarship does not really challenge it either beyond a normative critique. Metahistorical narratives of this type cannot be dismantled by micro-level critiques but have to be replaced by alternatives of a similar scale. We need to develop alternative metahistorical narratives of global modernity in which all actors share the same temporal space and have similar levels of agency. The chapter demonstrates these claims through a detailed examination of the 'emergence of the modern state' literature.

Handbook of Political Anthropology

This handbook introduces readers to the field of political anthropology. It engages major debates and the shifting borders of a moving field of enquiry at the intersection of anthropology, politics, philosophy and international relations. The aim is not only to provide an overview of the current debates around political anthropology today, but also to flesh out the potential and the limits of the approaches, methodologies and explanatory frames developed by scholars working within political anthropology. Political anthropology is not an easily definable subject area or sub-discipline. The variety of approaches one can connect to the term makes it virtually impossible to interrogate the what, how, why and where of current political anthropology: one is immediately thrown into the daunting task of reviewing not only the entire discipline of anthropology but also the many interfaces between anthropology and the social and political sciences in a world of blurry boundaries. In a sense, it may appear futile writing a handbook on a field whose contours seem difficult, if not impossible, to delineate. And yet it is worth a try. It is worth a try exactly because we find ourselves in a moment where there is a growing awareness of the need to retrieve older insights and combine them with newer developments. Social science, after all, should be cumulative. Contemporary challenges in an ever-shifting world should not necessarily result in a giving up on disciplinary traditions. Indeed, to speak with Marcel Mauss, the "political" cannot be so neatly separated, as the political sphere intersects with social, economic, legal, and cultural patterns and practices, forming a "total social fact". This might be a compelling reason for a return to classical insights, exactly due to problems of the contemporary political scene, whose underlying challenges and dangers may not always be so radically new after all. Surely, the idea of politics as a total social fact would seem to fit better in societies with low degrees of institutional differentiation. However, anthropologists have successfully argued that also in modern states a great deal of politics takes place via informal networks and informal political action, underpinning or overlapping with the more objectifiable institutional level that political scientists tend to concentrate on. Here, anthropology still offers a supplement to, and an enriching of, the wider social and political sciences. Political anthropology has been a powerful challenge to conventional wisdom in political science. It has called into question the validity of rationalist, structuralist or normative explanations of states and relations between states. Political anthropology has framed new visions of contemporary interpretive political analysis. This occurred, on the one hand, by adopting analytical tools from germane disciplines and, on the other hand, by providing analytical tools to germane disciplines as well. The move from structuralism and functionalism to process approaches, for instance, would be met by new theoretical frameworks inspired by post-structuralism and post-modernism. Post-structuralism has facilitated a decisive turn towards acknowledging the agency of