Papers by Cristina Di Bennardis
III Jornadas Nacionales de Historia …, Jan 1, 2011
Books by Cristina Di Bennardis
[Perhaps one of the most innovative processes in human history, and with deep consequences for mo... more [Perhaps one of the most innovative processes in human history, and with deep consequences for most
people’s lives, has been the transformation of non-state societies into state ones, although the qualitative leap
that this transformation implied had been hardly perceptible at that time, since this change does not exclude the
role that tradition might have played in the configuration and legitimization of the new institution of political
concentration. Historians, sociologists, social anthropologists, archaeologists have long addressed this issue,
and, for ancient society scholars, the analysis of the states of those times is not, in fact, an option among
different research topics but rather an imposition that comes from the nature of the sources. In their research
work, both philologists and archaeologists find, in the first place, the remains of what may be interpreted as
state organizations: most written and iconographic sources, as well as the monuments tell us about political
power centralization, therefore, about the states and the elites that constitute them. At the same time, the
traditional positivist requirement of considering only what is explicitly expressed in the sources (the ones that
survive are mostly produced by the elites) led researchers to overestimate the role of the state, almost ignoring
the rest of society. The present article aims to highlight that, in spite of the abovementioned matters, the concept
of state seem to have been frequently omitted in specialized publications. In order to overcome this omission,
we need to face the objections, direct or veiled, of those who restrict the use of this term only to the modern
state (which can be recognized in the positions held by Historic Sociology and Conceptual History), or of those
who consider that it is possible to carry out social studies without theoretical tools. To this end it is necessary to
fill this concept with meaning, taking into account both the abstract aspects that constitute it and the empirical
enclaves that give it empirical materiality. From a position that defends its use in ancient society studies, we
will present the general aspects of the concept and the specific aspects that define concrete historic cases: citystate,
regional-state, ethnic-state, consanguineous-territorial mixed state, empire.]
Uploads
Papers by Cristina Di Bennardis
Books by Cristina Di Bennardis
people’s lives, has been the transformation of non-state societies into state ones, although the qualitative leap
that this transformation implied had been hardly perceptible at that time, since this change does not exclude the
role that tradition might have played in the configuration and legitimization of the new institution of political
concentration. Historians, sociologists, social anthropologists, archaeologists have long addressed this issue,
and, for ancient society scholars, the analysis of the states of those times is not, in fact, an option among
different research topics but rather an imposition that comes from the nature of the sources. In their research
work, both philologists and archaeologists find, in the first place, the remains of what may be interpreted as
state organizations: most written and iconographic sources, as well as the monuments tell us about political
power centralization, therefore, about the states and the elites that constitute them. At the same time, the
traditional positivist requirement of considering only what is explicitly expressed in the sources (the ones that
survive are mostly produced by the elites) led researchers to overestimate the role of the state, almost ignoring
the rest of society. The present article aims to highlight that, in spite of the abovementioned matters, the concept
of state seem to have been frequently omitted in specialized publications. In order to overcome this omission,
we need to face the objections, direct or veiled, of those who restrict the use of this term only to the modern
state (which can be recognized in the positions held by Historic Sociology and Conceptual History), or of those
who consider that it is possible to carry out social studies without theoretical tools. To this end it is necessary to
fill this concept with meaning, taking into account both the abstract aspects that constitute it and the empirical
enclaves that give it empirical materiality. From a position that defends its use in ancient society studies, we
will present the general aspects of the concept and the specific aspects that define concrete historic cases: citystate,
regional-state, ethnic-state, consanguineous-territorial mixed state, empire.]
people’s lives, has been the transformation of non-state societies into state ones, although the qualitative leap
that this transformation implied had been hardly perceptible at that time, since this change does not exclude the
role that tradition might have played in the configuration and legitimization of the new institution of political
concentration. Historians, sociologists, social anthropologists, archaeologists have long addressed this issue,
and, for ancient society scholars, the analysis of the states of those times is not, in fact, an option among
different research topics but rather an imposition that comes from the nature of the sources. In their research
work, both philologists and archaeologists find, in the first place, the remains of what may be interpreted as
state organizations: most written and iconographic sources, as well as the monuments tell us about political
power centralization, therefore, about the states and the elites that constitute them. At the same time, the
traditional positivist requirement of considering only what is explicitly expressed in the sources (the ones that
survive are mostly produced by the elites) led researchers to overestimate the role of the state, almost ignoring
the rest of society. The present article aims to highlight that, in spite of the abovementioned matters, the concept
of state seem to have been frequently omitted in specialized publications. In order to overcome this omission,
we need to face the objections, direct or veiled, of those who restrict the use of this term only to the modern
state (which can be recognized in the positions held by Historic Sociology and Conceptual History), or of those
who consider that it is possible to carry out social studies without theoretical tools. To this end it is necessary to
fill this concept with meaning, taking into account both the abstract aspects that constitute it and the empirical
enclaves that give it empirical materiality. From a position that defends its use in ancient society studies, we
will present the general aspects of the concept and the specific aspects that define concrete historic cases: citystate,
regional-state, ethnic-state, consanguineous-territorial mixed state, empire.]