Power and the Self

This book, first published in 2002, analyses the ways in which power is experienced by individuals as agents and objects.

In this book, first published in 2002, scholars in contemporary psychological anthropology who have contributed to critical social theory and social construction of selfhood and identity examine the relations between political structures and economic circumstances on the one hand, and motivations, emotions and meanings on the other.Power and the Self, first published in 2002, deals with an important but neglected topic: the ways in which power is experienced by individuals, both as agents and as objects of the exercise of power. Each contributor presents a series of case studies drawn from a variety of cultural contexts, including the analysis of the appeal of Japanese superhero toys for American children; the conditions that lead to dehumanising treatment of patients in an American nursing home; the experiences of a Turkish immigrant woman in the Netherlands; a contribution relating theories about the capacity to commit genocidal violence to 'everyday forms of violence', and other cases from New Guinea and Samoa. The introduction provides a readable historical review and synthesis of the theoretical ideas that provide the context for the work presented in the book.