From Anthropology to Social Theory

Szakolczai, Árpád; Thomassen, Bjørn

doi:10.1017/9781108529426

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…It is the greyed-haired baby that will appear at moments of stalemate ‘to suggest an amoral action, something right/wrong that will get life going again’ (Hyde, 1998: 7). But while tricksters masquerade as saviours (Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 220), mediators of conflicts and instruments of social justice, their motives for choosing between good and bad remain obscure. An apparent underdog, the trickster intimates a form of control that leaves open whether its accomplishments happen by accident or whether it is in fact remarkably clever, ‘exacting justice in a way that leaves him immune to punishment’ (Kononenko and Kukharenko, 2008: 9).…”

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The central modality of cunning trickster knowledge is mimetic and thus close to art, so it can be perceived particularly well in artistic performances (Babcock-Abrahams, 1975: 182; Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 237). By transforming imitation into ‘a non-pragmatic art of transgressive life’, Soviet tricksters, for example, embody ‘a cultural justification for dangerous, non-heroic and cynical survival’ (Lipovetsky, 2015: 44).…”

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In terms of the trickster’s dynamics we identify in international society, such occasions produce a heightened sense of freedom from the straitjacket of conventions wherein social norms can be negotiated and potentially transgressed, thus creating openings that endow trickstery with a powerful egalitarian potential. But liminal moments, on the other hand, are not necessarily something new or transformative, being more like anguishing situations of uncertainty (Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 231). Liminal conditions are openings that permit throwing doubt on any patterns of action.…”

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tricksters’ relation to the sacred is what distinguishes them from simple crooks (Lipovetsky, 2011: 33); however, this is a peculiar relation. The trickster’s divine pedigree is constantly questioned, while still bounded with its being the second founder of the world (Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 137). Not the original deity figure, the trickster remains the second creator, ‘thus playing a fundamental role in altering the original order of reality’ (Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 137).…”

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The trickster’s divine pedigree is constantly questioned, while still bounded with its being the second founder of the world (Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 137). Not the original deity figure, the trickster remains the second creator, ‘thus playing a fundamental role in altering the original order of reality’ (Szakolczai and Thomassen, 2019: 137). The trickster’s deification thus derives from the connectedness to the origin of its cultural system and the grasp the trickster has of the dependence of that order on the reproduction of social cohesion, which allows it to challenge that order through tricks.…”

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Trickstery: pluralising stigma in international society

Kurowska

Reshetnikov

2020

European Journal of International Relations

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International politics is often imagined via a binary opposition between the oppressor and the oppressed. Attention to entrenched hierarchies of power is essential in the study of international politics. However, taking this division too rigidly can obfuscate the very mechanisms of power that must be understood in order to grasp these hierarchies. We identify one such mechanism in the practice of trickstery, particularly as practiced in the context of Russia’s ambivalent and conflicted place in international society. Through the dynamics of trickstery, we show the workings of stigmatisation to be a plural phenomenon, giving rise to various normative challenges. The trickster is both conformist and deviant, hero and anti-hero – a “plural figure” both reflecting the rich cultural texture of international society and contesting its hierarchies. The trickster particularly unsettles the ideal liberal (global) public sphere through its simultaneous performance of emancipatory and anti-emancipatory logics. In this, trickstery produces normatively undecidable situations that exceed the analytical capacities of, for example, the strategic use of norms, norm contestation, and stigma management literatures. We find trickstery to be encapsulated in the contemporary international situation of Russia, while recognising that its practices are potentially available to other actors with similarly liminal status and cultural repertoires. We particularly analyse the trickster practice of ‘overidentification’ with norms, which apparently endorses but indirectly subverts the normative frameworks within which it is performed. Such overidentification is a form of satire, contemporaneously appropriated by state actors, which has indeterminate yet significant effects.

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Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Trickster: Cultural Archetype Contextual Vocabularymentioning

confidence: 99%

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