Political Anthropology

Historical development and fundamental paradigm before the onset of political anthropology are considered. The issue of authority and the State: relations between social philosophy and anthropology. Territorial authorities and the principle of kinship. Evolutionary paradigm and its limitations. Application of different theories: cultural evolutionism, functionalism, structuralism, political economy, procesualism, testing their usability. Special attention is paid to the history of the social constructions of the West against "people without history" and postcolonial discourse of ''the third world," "developing countries", etc. Anthropology of the State as an important part of anthropological research: theories of transitions and civilizations, the difference between nomadic life and farming, between generic and territorial identification, cities and landscape, and other conceptual pairs of political anthropology to understand the diversity and mutuality of contemporary political-economic strategies, social organizations, ideologies - powers. Lectures take also into account ecological knowledge, symbolic, psychological anthropology and establish other interdisciplinary connections. Ethnographic examples from Slovenian political history and the present are placed along with examples from around the world.