Subtitle:

Ethnologia Polona 31-32 (2010-2011)

Publisher:

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology Polish Academy of Sciences

Place of publishing:

Warszwa

Description:

24 cm

Type of object:

Journal/Article

Abstract:

The present study is based on the results of the author’s own research conducted in 1999 in the district of Lomié in south-eastern Cameroon verified by scientific literature pertaining to Pygmy communities and the libertarian discourse. The study presents how anthropological research may be used both in political and applied science and analysed from a different, more practical perspective. The author refers to Clastres’ dual concept of separating the categories of ‘power’ and ‘politics’ and Lasswell’s interpretation of politics as the domain of deciding who gets what, when and how, illustrating it with the example of Pygmy communities. The Pygmy society has no central power institutions, but does know mechanisms of leadership which may be described as a ‘minimal government’ relating to ‘emotional management’. In choosing a leader, a community grants him not ‘power’, but ‘prestige’. Such a person becomes a kind of a coordinator, an official responsible for his actions and the entire group (community), as well as for the completion of the project; this may be called “communal control and exploitation of the environment”

References:

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Relation:

Ethnologia Polona

Volume:

31-32

Start page:

139

End page:

149

Detailed Resource Type:

Article

Format:

application/pdf

Resource Identifier:

oai:rcin.org.pl:61373 ; 0137-4079

Source:

IAiE PAN, call no. P 366 ; IAiE PAN, call no. P 367 ; IAiE PAN, call no. P 368 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

eng

Digitizing institution:

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Access:

Open