Images of Power and the Power of Images

Real places and events are constructed and used to symbolize abstract formulations of power and authority in politics, corporate practice, the arts, religion, and community. By analyzing the aesthetics of public space in contexts both mundane and remarkable, the contributors examine the social relationship between public and private activities that impart meaning to groups of people beyond their individual or local circumstances. From a range of perspectives—anthropological, sociological, and socio-cultural—the contributors discuss road-making in Peru, mass housing in Britain, an unsettling traveling exhibition, and an art fair in London; we explore the meaning of walls in Jerusalem, a Zen garden in Japan, and religious themes in Europe and India. Literally and figuratively, these situations influence the ways in which ordinary people interpret their everyday worlds. By deconstructing the taken for- granted definitions of social value (democracy, equality, individualism, fortune), the authors reveal the ideological role of imagery and imagination in a globalized political context.

Real places and events are constructed and used to symbolize abstract formulations of power and authority in politics, corporate practice, the arts, religion, and community. By analyzing the aesthetics of public space in contexts both mundane and remarkable, the contributors examine the social relationship between public and private activities that impart meaning to groups of people beyond their individual or local circumstances. From a range of perspectives—anthropological, sociological, and socio-cultural—the contributors discuss road-making in Peru, mass housing in Britain, an unsettling traveling exhibition, and an art fair in London; we explore the meaning of walls in Jerusalem, a Zen garden in Japan, and religious themes in Europe and India. Literally and figuratively, these situations influence the ways in which ordinary people interpret their everyday worlds. By deconstructing the taken for- granted definitions of social value (democracy, equality, individualism, fortune), the authors reveal the ideological role of imagery and imagination in a globalized political context.

Introduction: Images of Power and the Power of Images
Judith Kapferer

Chapter 1. Twilight of the Enlightenment: The Art Fair, the Culture Industry, and the ‘Creative Class’
Judith Kapferer

Chapter 2. Cementing Relations: The Materiality of Roads and Public Spaces in Provincial Peru
Penelope Harvey

Chapter 3. Multifaceted Monolith: The Hidden Diversity of Mass Housing
Miles Glendinning

Chapter 4. Folding and Enfolding Walls: Statist Imperatives and Bureaucratic Aesthetics in Divided Jerusalem
Don Handelman

Chapter 5. Body Shock: The Political Aesthetics of Death
Uli Linke

Chapter 6. The Symbolic Body and the Rhetoric of Power
Laura Verdi

Chapter 7. The Limits of Metaphor: Ideology and Representation in the Zen Garden
Allen S. Weiss

Chapter 8. Images of Transgression: Teyyam in Malabar
Dinesan Vadakkiniyil