Ideology (Anthropology)

"A Parasite From Outer Space: How Sergei Kurekhin proved that Lenin was a mushroom"

by Alexei Yurchak Алексей Юрчак

Slavic Review, Spring 2011

Language history as charter myth? Scots and the (re)invention of Scotland

by James Costa

Costa, J. (2009). "Language History as Charter Myth? Scots and the (Re)invention of Scotland." Scottish Language 28: 1-25.

In this article, I intend to concentrate on one type of process by which Scots has found new legitimation as a... more In this article, I intend to concentrate on one type of process by which Scots has found new legitimation as a language, and how discourses surrounding the issue of Scots might seek to contribute to the creation of a new Scottish society. I whish to show how history is used as a legitimating discursive device by the various components of the Scots language revitalisation movement.

Themes and Variations: Ideological Systems in the Great Lakes

by William Fox

Co-authored with Robert J. Salzer.

Archaeological evidence from southern Ontario and Wisconsin relating to early Late Woodland ritual and associated... more Archaeological evidence from southern Ontario and Wisconsin relating to early Late Woodland ritual and associated ideology is presented.

Neoliberalism and geography: expansions, variegations, formations

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2010. Neoliberalism and geography: expansions, variegations, formations. Geography Compass. 4 (8), 1025-1038.

The pervasiveness of neoliberalism within the field of human geography is remarkable, especially when we consider its... more The pervasiveness of neoliberalism within the field of human geography is remarkable, especially when we consider its virtual absence from the literature less than a decade ago. While the growing attention afforded to neoliberalism among geographers is new, the phenomenon of neoliberalism is not. This paper traces the intellectual history of neoliberalism and its expansions across various institutional frameworks and geographical settings. I review the primary contributions geographers have made to the literature, and specifically their recognition for neoliberalism’s variegations within existing political economic matrixes and institutional frameworks. Contra the prevailing view of neoliberalism as a pure and static end-state, geographical inquiry illuminates neoliberalism as a dynamic and unfolding process. The concept of ‘neoliberalization’ is thus seen as more appropriate to geographical theorizations insofar as it recognizes neoliberalism’s hybridized and mutated forms as it travels around our world. I also consider some of the most salient ways that neoliberalism has been theorized among human geographers. In particular, I highlight understandings of neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology, as a policy-based approach to state reform, and as a particular logic of governmentality, arguing that while there are significant differences between these various formations, it may also be important to work beyond methodological, epistemological, and ontological divides in the larger interest of social justice.

Conceptual Debates in Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration

by Stephen Larin

Larin, Stephen J. "Conceptual Debates in Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration." In The International Studies Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Denemark, 438-57. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.

The purpose of this essay is to review some of the basic conceptual debates in nationalism studies under the broad and... more The purpose of this essay is to review some of the basic conceptual debates in nationalism studies under the broad and interrelated categories of ethnicity, nations and nationalism, and classification of nations and nationalism. The sheer volume of literature produced on these subjects, particularly since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, poses a major challenge, but the present selective focus using key and influential texts as examples should provide the reader with a solid foundation for further research. The essay has three sections, organized as follows. The first, on ethnicity, provides a brief history of the term and an overview of what is usually described as the debate between primordialist and instrumentalist accounts of ethnicity, but suggests that this characterization is misleading. Section two, on nations and nationalism, begins with a similar etymology before surveying the debate between modernist, perennialist, and ethno-symbolist conceptions of the nature of and relations between those two phenomena. Finally, the third section reviews the range of ways that nations and nationalism have been classified, including the now dominant distinction between civic and ethnic types.


This essay is part of the "Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Migration" section of the International Studies Association's "International Studies Encyclopedia" (www.isacompendium.com).

Source of the Tigris: event, place and performance in the Assyrian landscapes of the Early Iron Age

by Ömür Harmansah

Archaeological Dialogues 14.2 (December 2007): 179-204.

Performative engagements with specific, culturally significant places were among the primary means of configuring... more Performative engagements with specific, culturally significant places were among the primary means of configuring landscapes in the ancient world. Ancient states often appropriated symbolic or ritual landscapes through commemorative ceremonies and
building operations. These commemorative sites became event-places where state spectacles encountered and merged with local cult practices. The Early Iron Age inscriptions and reliefs carved on the cave walls of the Dibni Su sources at the
site of Birkleyn in Eastern Turkey, known as the ‘Source of the Tigris’ monuments, present a compelling paradigm for such spatial practices. Assyrian kings Tiglathpileser I (1114–1076 B.C.) and Shalmaneser III (858–824 B.C.) carved ‘images of kingship’ and accompanying royal inscriptions at this impressive site in a remote but politically contested region. This important commemorative event was represented in detail on Shalmaneser III’s bronze repouss´e bands from Imgul-Enlil (Tell Balawat) as
well as in his annalistic texts, rearticulating the performance of the place on public monuments in Assyrian urban contexts. This paper approaches the making of the Source of the Tigris monuments as a complex performative place-event. The effect
was to reconfigure a socially significant, mytho-poetic landscape into a landscape of commemoration and cult practice, illustrating Assyrian rhetorics of kingship. These rhetorics were maintained by articulate gestures of inscription that appropriated an already symbolically charged landscape in a liminal territory and made it durable through site-specific spatial practices and narrative representations.

Keywords: mytho-poetic landscape; commemorative monuments; rock reliefs; place; performance; event; rhetorics of kingship; acts of inscription

The Art of Political Discourse: Ideology and Sacrificial Ritual Among the Moche

by Erica Hill