NuAP
An Anthropology of Politics: Rituals, Representations and Violence
The aim of this project is to comprehend politics in two senses of the term: as a principle of unification and identity designating ‘political communities’ (the party, city or nation); and as a specific domain (a world of professionals with its own rules and values). Analysis focuses on the overlaps between what from the native point of view is conceptualized as ‘politics’, and what is taken to belong to other domains of social and cultural life. Supported by ethnography of strategically selected events, situations, rituals, dramas and social processes, the project seeks to reveal social and cultural meanings particular to politics in Brazil. The ethnographies bring together three key dimensions of an anthropology of politics: the study of the rituals of politics, of its representations, and of violence in politics.