The Politics of Egalitarianism

The essays assembled in this book exemplify the way political anthropologists address a range of problems that deeply affect people throughout the world. The authors draw their inspiration from the work of Canadian anthropologist Richard B. Lee, and, like him, they are concerned with understanding and acting upon issues of "indigenous rights"; the impact of colonialism, postcolonial state formation, and neoliberalism on local communities and cultures; the process of culture change; what the history and politics of egalitarian societies reveal about issues of "human nature" or "social evolution"; and how peoples in southern Africa are affected by and responding to the most recent crisis in their midst, the spread of AIDS. The authors in this volume discuss the state of a range of contemporary debates in the field that in various ways extend the political, theoretical, and empirical issues that have animated Lee''s work. In addition, the book provides readers with important contemporary Kalahari studies, as well as "classic" works on foraging societies.

The essays assembled in this book exemplify the way political anthropologists address a range of problems that deeply affect people throughout the world. The authors draw their inspiration from the work of Canadian anthropologist Richard B. Lee, and, like him, they are concerned with understanding and acting upon issues of “indigenous rights”; the impact of colonialism, postcolonial state formation, and neoliberalism on local communities and cultures; the process of culture change; what the history and politics of egalitarian societies reveal about issues of “human nature” or “social evolution”; and how peoples in southern Africa are affected by and responding to the most recent crisis in their midst, the spread of AIDS. The authors in this volume discuss the state of a range of contemporary debates in the field that in various ways extend the political, theoretical, and empirical issues that have animated Lee's work. In addition, the book provides readers with important contemporary Kalahari studies, as well as “classic” works on foraging societies.

Introduction
Jacqueline Solway

PART I: THE POLITICS AND PRACTICES OF EGALITARIANISM

Chapter 1. All People Are (Not) Good
Bruce G. Trigger

Chapter 2. Community, State, and Questions of Social Evolution in Karl Marx's Ethnological Notebooks
Christine Ward Gailey

Chapter 3. Subtle Matters of Theory and Emphasis: Richard Lee and Controversies about Foraging Peoples
Thomas C. Patterson

Chapter 4. "The Orginal Affluent Society": Four Decades On
Jacqueline Solway

Chapter 5. The Original Affluent Society
Marshall Sahlins

Chapter 6. On the Politics of Being Jewish in a Multiracial State
Karen Brodkin

PART II: THE KALAHARI THEN AND NOW

Chapter 7. The Lion/Bushman Relationship in Nyae Nyae in the 1950s: A Relationship Crafted in the Old Way
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas

Chapter 8. The Kalahari Peoples Fund: The Activist Legacy of the Harvard Kalahari Research Group
Megan Biesele

Chapter 9. Land, Livestock, and Leadership among the Ju/'hoansi San of North-Western Botswana
Robert K. Hitchcock

Chapter 10. Contemporary Bushman Art, Identity, Politics, and the Primitivism Discourse
Mathias Guenther

Chapter 11. Class, Culture, and Recognition: San Fam Workers and Indigenous Identities
Renée Sylvain

Chapter 12. The Other Side of Development: HIV/AIDS among Men and Women in Ju/;hoansi Villages
Ida Susser

PART III: RICHARD BORSHAY LEE: AN APPRECIATION

Chapter 13. Richard B. Lee and Company: A Kalahari Chronicle, 1963-2000
Compiled by Jacqueline Solway

Chapter 14. Richard B. Lee: The Politics, Art, and Science of Anthropology
Christine Ward Gailey

Richard Borshay Lee: Selected Bibliography
Compiled by Jacqueline Solway

Notes on Contributors
Index