Social Anthropology

This edited collection proposes an ethnography of morality can resolve the habit of pittng universalist against cultural relativist oppositions.  Whereas philosopher argues to erase contradiction for a universal theory of value, anthropology admits paradox as a necessary part of a general theory of value.

This paper looks at the operation of distinction amongst FC United of Manchester fans. It begins with a discussion of Bennett et al’s recent analysis of social distinction in British
cultural life. Here they suggest that recent commercialisation practices and state regulation within football aimed at breaking the strong relationship between football and the working class, have led to the watching of football being a cultural activity evenly popular across social classes and, therefore, no longer a sight for the making of cultural distinction in Britain. I use my research with FC United fans to suggest that these very policies have led football fans to make explicit distinctions about how, and by whom, football should be watched. I look at how FC United fans dissatisfaction with the ‘matchday experience’ at Old Trafford have been expressed by drawing a distinction between themselves and ‘new’ supporters and their ‘passive’ modes of support. I suggest that these ‘distinctions’ have led these supporters to
create a matchday experience at FC United which stands in clear contrasts to what they see as prevailing at Old Trafford. Finally, I look at FC United fans attitudes towards televised
football, and suggest these are related to the distinction they draw around the watching of football and what constitutes ‘authentic’ football spectating.

The work that NGOs now do has undergone significant change since they came to prominence as development actors in the 1980s. NGOs in Africa are shaped by a development donor civil society template that provides the resources and the training to produce a distinct sector made up of recognizable and formalized organisations which are to be organised in country-wide networks to play anticipated roles in pro-poor policy-making and holding government to account. Realizing this template in the forms of organisations demands specific kinds of work through which civil society comes to be enabled as an actor in development. This work can be characterised as contracting, volunteering, and scalar work. Civil society work demands the performance of certain subjectivities amenable to interstitial positionality. Contracted cosmopolitanism plays an important role in the constitution of civil society working and in the differentiation of civil society actors from the communities which are the object of their endeavour. This paper examines the scope and constitution of civil society work in two rural districts in Tanzania.

This article explores some aspects of the representation poverty in development studies from an anthropological perspective. Starting from the history of the category of poverty as the central target for development policy, the article shows how the ways in which poverty is assessed not only have implications for the kinds of strategies adopted to address it but for theories about its causes. Such accounts underplay the significance of social relations in contributing to poverty outcomes and the political structures which keep people poor. Anthropological approaches to the study of deprivation and inequality can provide a useful corrective to the homogenising effects of development perspectives on poverty.

This article examines the relation between witchcraft suppression institutions in southern Tanzania and the entrenchment of witchcraft. While practices against witches are acclaimed as a public good by grateful residents such practices actually contribute to the institutionalisation of witchcraft in the area.

Poverty and poverty reduction are currently the central concerns of development analysis, discourse and poverty. Despite recent theoretical advances poverty analysis continues to be dominated by income/consumption poverty so that poverty reduction can be measured, correlates identified and the crucial inputs the poor are lacking specified so that the MDGs can be achieved. In this paper we argue for conceptualisations of poverty that go beyond issues of measurement and 'gap filling' to more adequately expose the causes of poverty. Chronic Poverty is one such concept. Its focus on poverty duration and poverty dynamics highlights the forms of social relations, often embedded within economic structures and political norms and institutions, that produce the bundle of effects that constitute poverty. Poverty reduction does not simply require 'good' policy: it requires creating the capacity of poorer people to influence, and hold accountable, those who make policies.