11 research outputs found

    Contemporary Africa through the theory of Louis Dumont

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    Abstract This article responds to a trend in recent anthropological scholarship in Africa that has overemphasized a lack of social organization following the advancement of neoliberal reforms across the continent. Using a theoretical framework informed by the theory of Louis Dumont, I show that social organization remains an important analytical topic in times of crisis, and that this is best apprehended through an analysis of values. The ethnographic focus of this article is Pentecostal Christianity as it is practiced on the Zambian Copperbelt. In this particular African context, Pentecostalism is animated by an overarching value that I call "moving," which is in turn made up to two sub-values: charisma and prosperity. By exploring how Pentecostal believers navigate the hierarchical relationship between these two sub-values, we are given a clear picture of the social world that Pentecostal adherence makes possible

    Citational Practices: Knowledge, Personhood, and Subjectivity

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    Citation is a foundational dimension of human language and social life. Citational practices attribute utterances to distinct speakers, beings, or texts. They also connect temporalities, joining past, present, and future discourses, documents, and performance practices. In so doing, citational practices play a pivotal role in linking particular articulations of subjectivity to wider formations of cultural knowledge and authority. We explore how this linkage operates via production formats, participant structures, genre conventions, and ideologies of personhood. We then consider approaches to citation in the domain of legal discourse, an arena that relies on specific, patterned forms of citation that are historically rooted, institutionally perpetuated, and subjectively reenacted
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