Notes towards an Anthropology of Political Revolutions

Abstract

While resistance and rebellion have remained core themes in anthropology at least since the 1960s, anthropologists have paid much less attention to the study of political revolutions as real historical events. Yet there are compelling real-world reasons why they should orient their analytical apparatus and ethnographic efforts towards revolutionary events. This article advances a series of reasons why anthropology can enrich and supplement existing political science and history traditions in the study of political revolutions. Anthropology can do so via key concepts developed by Victor Turner: “liminality,” “social drama,” “communitas,” “frame,” and “play.” Turner's ritual approach gains further relevance when linked to another series of concepts developed by Marcel Mauss, Gabriel Tarde, Georg Simmel, and Gregory Bateson, such as “imitation,” “trickster,” “schismogenesis,” and “crowd behavior.” To study revolutions implies not only a focus on political behavior “from below,” but also recognition of moments where “high and low” are relativized or subverted, and where the micro- and macro-levels fuse in critical conjunctions.

The French Revolution and the Craft of the Liminal Void: From the Sanctity of Power to the Political Power of the Limitless Sacred

“…The second point is that revolutions have to be analyzed as ritual events [Thomassen 2012]. Revolutions as events resemble rituals precisely because the ritual process provides the structure of human experience.…”

Radikale brud, aktivisme og forandring: Indføring i en brydningstid

“…At studere revolutioner og andre former for radikal social forandring betyder ikke blot et blik på sociale handlinger der opstår "nedefra", men indebaerer en erkendelse af specifikke rum og specifikke øjeblikke hvor gaengse sociale og politiske hierarkier er relativeret, og hvor den underliggende grammatik, der begrunder sociale positioner og legitimerer magtens (for)deling, pludselig evaporerer: en figuration hvor de normale spilleregler er sat ud af funktion, og hvor spillerne opfinder deres egne regler alt imens de udøver en politisk kamp (Thomassen 2012).…”

“…Den generelle pointe, vi her ønsker at fremhaeve, er således at ikke bare moderne politiske revolutioner, men også diverse former for samfundsforandring og social mobilisering har klare teatralske og rituelle kendetegn og derfor kan de studeres inden for det man i samfundsteorien bredt betegner som en proces-analyse (Thomassen 2012). De mest oplagte eksempler på sådanne rituelle protestformer er naturligvis den fysiske erobring af byens pladser som startede i Madrid for fem år siden og som hurtigt blev til en slags global, teatralsk model for social protest.…”

Judicial Justice for Special Economic Zone Land Resistance

“…Drawing from Thomassen (2012), I apply Victor Turner's notions of liminality, rituals and change to explore anti-SEZ protest transitions. Inferring Turner's interest in applying ideas of liminality to political contexts, Thomassen analyses political revolution in relation to "in-between" states and responses to liminality.…”