Democracy, Elections & Voting

For over twenty years, Cultural Anthropology has published a wide range of essays in which its authors approach the practices of voting, elections, and democratic institutions in innovative ways. For example, a cultural politics of the ‘voice’ - arguably the cornerstone of democratic practice - has been critically examined by Hervé Varenne (1987) in “Talk and Real Talk,” and more recently by Laura Kunreuther (2007) in “Technologies of the Voice.” Essays have also considered alternative modes of democratization as with the vigilantism richly analyzed by Daniel Jordan Smith in “The Bakassi Boys” (2004). Additionally, a number of authors have looked at the instructive relationship between dance and democracy; see “Democratizing Dance” by Deborah A. Thomas (2004), “Multipartyism and Nostalgia for the Unified Past” by Clare A. Ignatowski (2002) and “Politics without a Head” by John Borneman and Stefan Senders (2000). Other key topics addressed in this rich corpus include the uses and effects of quantitative technologies, racial ideologies and their implications for political representation, and the intersection of public politics and private consumption.

Physical Training, Ethical Discipline, and Creative Violence: Zones of Self-Mastery in the Hindu Nationalist Movement
Arafaat A. Valiani
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2010, Vol. 25, No. 1: 73-99
Supplemental Material

Inscribing Subjects to Citizenship: Petitions, Literacy Activism, and the Performativity of Signature in Rural Tamil India
Francis Cody
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 3: 347-380
Supplemental Material

THE FACE OF MONEY: Currency, Crisis, and Remediation in Post-Suharto Indonesia
Karen Strassler
Cultural Anthropology Feb. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 1: 68-103
Supplemental Material

Watching U.S. Television From the Palestinian Street: The Media, The State and Representational Interventions
Amahl Bishara
Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2008, Vol. 23, No.3: 488-530
Supplemental Material

Repossession: Notes on Restoration and Redemption in Ukraine's Western Borderland
Karolina Szmagalska-Follis
Cultural Anthropology May 2008, Vol. 23, No. 2: 329-360.
Supplemental material and Discussion

Technologies of the Voice: FM Radio, Telephone, and the Nepali Diaspora in Kathmandu
Laura Kunreuther
Cultural Anthropology Aug 2006, Vol. 21, No. 3: 323-353.

Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in the Era of Globalization.
Ritty Lukose
Cultural Anthropology Nov 2005, Vol. 20, No. 4: 506-533.

Election Day: the Construction of Democracy through Technique
Kimberley A. Coles
Cultural Anthropology Nov 2004, Vol. 19, No. 4: 551-580.

The Bakassi Boys: Vigilantism, Violence, and Political Imagination in Nigeria
Daniel Jordan Smith
Cultural Anthropology Aug 2004, Vol. 19, No. 3: 429-455.

Multipartyism and Nostalgia for the Unified Past: Discourses of Democracy in a Dance Association in Cameroon
Clare A. Ignatowski
Cultural Anthropology May 2004, Vol. 19, No. 2: 276-298.

Democratizing Dance: Institutional Transformation and Hegemonic Re-Ordering in Postcolonial Jamaica
Deborah A. Thomas
Cultural Anthropology Nov 2002, Vol. 17, No. 4: 512-550.

Making Democracy Count: Opinion Polls and Market Surveys in the Chilean Political Transition
Julia Paley
Cultural Anthropology May 2001, Vol. 16, No. 2: 135-164.

Beyond Identity Fetishism: "Communal" Conflict in Ladakh and the Limits of Autonomy
Martijn van Beek
Cultural Anthropology Nov 2000, Vol. 15, No. 4: 525-569.

Politics without a Head: Is the "Love Parade" a New Form of Political Identification?
John Borneman; Stefan Senders
Cultural Anthropology May 2000, Vol. 15, No. 2: 294-317.

Executing Ethnicity: The Killings in Suriname
Richard Price
Cultural Anthropology Nov 1995, Vol. 10, No. 4: 437-471.

Cultural Citizenship and Educational Democracy
Renato Rosaldo
Cultural Anthropology Aug 1994, Vol. 9, No. 3: 402-411.

Race, Rubbish, and Resistance: Empowering Difference in Community Politics
Steven Gregory
Cultural Anthropology Feb 1993, Vol. 8, No. 1: 24-48.

Whose History? Whose Voice? Myth and Resistance in the Rise of the New Left in Mexico
James H. McDonald
Cultural Anthropology Feb 1993, Vol. 8, No. 1: 96-116.

Representation and Politics: Contesting Histories of the Iroquois
Sara Ciborski, Gail Landsman
Cultural Anthropology Nov 1992, Vol. 7, No. 4: 425-447.

Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization
Liisa H. Malkki
Cultural Anthropology Aug 1996, Vol. 11, No. 3: 377-404.

The Art of Being Indirect: Talking about Politics in Brazil
Teresa Pires do Rio Caldeira
Cultural Anthropology Nov 1988, Vol. 3, No. 4: 444-454.

Talk and Real Talk: The Voices of Silence and the Voices of Power in American Family Life
Hervé Varenne
Cultural Anthropology Aug 1987, Vol. 2, No. 3: 369-394.