Power and the Self

Power and the Self deals with an important but neglected topic: the ways in which power is experienced by individuals, both as agents and as objects of the exercise of power. Each contributor presents a series of case studies drawn from a variety of cultural contexts, including the analysis of the appeal of Japanese superhero toys for American children; the conditions that lead to dehumanising treatment of patients in an American nursing home; the experiences of a Turkish immigrant woman in the Netherlands; a contribution relating theories about the capacity to commit genocidal violence to 'everyday forms of violence', and other cases from New Guinea and Samoa. The introduction provides a readable historical review and synthesis of the theoretical ideas that provide the context for the work presented in the book.

Jeannette Marie Mageo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. She has lived in the Pacific, where she has carried out extensive fieldwork, and she writes about self, power, transvestism, spirit possession, moral discourse, and body symbolism