The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of ValueThe Body Impolitic is a critical study of tradition, not merely as an ornament of local and national heritage, but also as a millstone around the necks of those who are condemned to produce it. Michael Herzfeld takes us inside a rich variety of small-town Cretan artisans' workshops to show how apprentices are systematically thwarted into learning by stealth and guile. This harsh training reinforces a stereotype of artisans as rude and uncultured. Moreover, the same stereotypes that marginalize artisans locally also operate to marginalize Cretans within the Greek nation and Greece itself within the international community. What Herzfeld identifies as "the global hierarchy of value" thus frames the nation's ancient monuments and traditional handicrafts as evidence of incurable "backwardness." Herzfeld's sensitive observations offer an intimately grounded way of understanding the effects of globalization and of one of its most visible offshoots, the heritage industry, on the lives of ordinary people in many parts of the world today. |
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The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value Michael Herzfeld No preview available - 2003 |
The Body Impolitic: Artisans and Artifice in the Global Hierarchy of Value Michael Herzfeld No preview available - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
aesthetic agnatic agnatic kinship agonistic anthropologists apprentice's apprentices apprenticeship artisanship attitudes authority avoid become bodily body bourgeois bureaucratic Christos Yannaras claim clan clearly coffeehouses competition context contrast craft Cretan artisans Crete cultural demeaning deskilling discipline display economic effects embodied employer especially ethnographic ethnography European European Union example expressed father feminization gender global hierarchy Greece Greek Herzfeld hierarchy of value hiring ideal identity ideology important insubordination interest Ioannis Metaxas kinship kinsman knowledge Konstantinopoulos labor less lives logic Malaby male marginal masculinity master master craftsman meraki modernist modernity moral nation-state neoliberal norms numbers older one’s particular partner partnership perhaps Pierre Bourdieu political practice precisely pride production relationship represent reproduce Rethemniot artisans Rethemnos rhetoric risk role sense serves skills social society solidarity sometimes space status steal term theft tisanal trade tradition verbal village women workshop young