Legends of People, Myths of State : : Violence, Intolerance, and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia / / Bruce Kapferer.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Berghahn Books Complete eBook-Package 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Kapferer, Bruce,
• MitwirkendeR: Bastin, Rohan,; Kapferer, Bruce,; Morris, Barry,; Rampton, David,; Wijeyeratne, Roshan de Silva,
• Place / Publishing House: New York ;, Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (446 p.)

The civil war in Sri Lanka and the part that nationalism seemed to play in it inspired the writing of this book some twenty-three years ago. The argument was developed through a comparative analysis of nationalism in Sri Lanka with the author’s native Australia. At the time this constituted an innovative approach to comparison in anthropology, as well as to nationalism and its possibilities. It was not based on differences but on the way in which perspectives from within the two nationalisms, when seen side-by-side, could present an understanding of their implication in producing the violence of war, racism, and social exclusion. The book has lost none of its importance and urgency as proven by the chapters in the Appendix, written by top scholars working in Sri Lanka and in Australia. These contributions bring together new material and critically explore the book’s themes and their continued relevance to the various trajectories in nationalist processes since the first publication of the book.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the New and Revised Edition -- Preface to the Paperback Reissue -- Introduction -- 1 Cultures of Nationalism: Political Cosmology and the Passions -- Part 1 Evil and the State Sinhalese Nationalism, Violence, and the Power of Hierarchy -- 2 Ethnic Violence and the Force of History in Legend -- 3 Evil, Power, and the State -- 4 Ideological Practice, Ethnic Nationalism, and the Passions -- Part 2 People Against the State: Australian Nationalism and Egalitarian Individualism -- 5 When the World Crumbles and the Heavens Fall In: War, Death, and the Creation of Nat -- 6 But the Band Played “Waltzing Maltilda” National Ceremonial and the Anatomy of Egalitarianism -- 7 Ethnicity and Intolerance: Egalitarian Nationalism and Its Political Practice -- 8 Nationalism, Tradition, and Political Culture -- Notes -- References -- Appendices -- Legends of People, Myths of State and the Current Context: By Way of Introduction -- Appendix 1 In the Wake of Legends: The Need for an Ontological Understanding of Nationalism and Power -- Appendix 2 Violence, Evil, and the State in Sri Lanka: Revisiting an Ontological Approach to Sinhalese Nationalism -- Appendix 3 Empty Spaces and the Multiple Modernities of Nationalism -- Appendix 4 The Social Genesis of Anzac Nationalism -- Appendix 5 The Australian Society of the State: Egalitarian Ideologies and New Directions in Exclusionary Practice -- Index