Duke University Press Subversive Archaism: Troubling Traditionalists and the Politics of National Heritage (The Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures)

In Subversive Archaism, Michael Herzfeld explores how individuals and communities living at the margins of the modern nation-state use nationalist discourses of tradition to challenge state authority under both democratic and authoritarian governments. Through close attention to the claims and experiences of mountain shepherds in Greece and urban slum dwellers in Thailand, Herzfeld shows how these subversive archaists draw on national histories and past polities to claim legitimacy for their defiance of bureaucratic authority. Although vilified by government authorities as remote, primitive, or dangerous―often as preemptive justification for violent repression―these groups are not revolutionaries and do not reject national identity, but they do question the equation of state with nation. Herzfeld explores the political strengths and vulnerabilities of their deployment of heritage and the weaknesses they expose in the bureaucratic and ethnonational state in an era of accelerated globalization. Review "Working closely with citizens and social movements that are portrayed as affronts to modernity, Michael Herzfeld shows us how state authorities both fetishize and are threatened by the 'subversive archaism' of marginalized groups, especially those who proudly embrace their alterity and believe they have morally superior claims to national identity. The book offers an acute assessment of belonging and resistance in nation-state formations, and it does so using ethnographic materials that mainstream political science and orthodox nationalists would rather we ignore."--Andrew Shryock, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan "In Subversive Archaism, Michael Herzfeld proposes the concept of 'subversive archaism, ' a bold new paradigm to investigate forms of resistance by which people claiming to represent authentic national communities thwart incursions on their autonomy by bureaucratic authorities. The writing is lucid, at times lyrical. The utilization of the anthropological archive is masterful. Above all, the comparative ethnography is impeccable, yielding a profoundly human document of the lives and struggles of people in Greece and Thailand during periods of upheaval and change."--Douglas R. Holmes, Distinguished Professor, Binghamton University, State University of New York About the Author Michael Herzfeld is Ernest E. Monrad Research Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Siege of the Spirits: Community and Polity in Bangkok and Evicted from Eternity: The Restructuring of Modern Rome.