Leadership, religion, kinship, warfare, exchange, ancestors – in all of the areas that anthropology has traditionally taken as its object, power and the people who hold it have been central themes for study. However, power took on a new relevance in the wake of the social movements that emerged in the 1960s and ’70s in the United States and Europe (feminism, the civil rights movement, gay rights, etc.) and through the processes leading to and following decolonization in other parts of the world, as reflected in new forms of interdisciplinary scholarship such as Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, etc. These new theoretical paradigms emphasized pop and popular cultures, history from below, subaltern positionings and resistance in the context of colonial or male domination, cultural minorities, in short all those social actors forgotten or silenced by traditional social scientific analysis. These approaches have rendered these subjects legitimate objects of study and find a large echo in anthropology today. In so doing, they have also directed our attention to the biases that structure much scientific discourse (Eurocentrism, androcentrism, etc.), bringing power and critical reflections thereon to the very heart of our discipline.

This issue of Tsantsa seeks contributions (in English, German or French) aiming to deepen our understanding of what we mean by « relations of power ». What more specifically do we mean by this phrase ? What in particular does anthropology have to offer in studying power ? How can we identify and describe power with an eye not only to its effects but to its dynamics ? What have the various social movements mentioned above brought to anthropology (new tools ? new perspectives ? other forms of bias ?) ? In particular, we seek contributions that combine some or all of these theoretical questionings with empirical studies based on fieldwork.

Please send your 600-1000 word abstracts to Séverine Rey (Severine.Rey@unil.ch), along with a short biographical note, by May 1st, 2007.

The final versions of the paper are due at the 30th of September 2007. They will be submitted to a double assessment (internal and external).

For further information regarding Tsantsa, the review of the Swiss Anthropological Society, as well as for more details on our publishing policy, please go to: http://www.seg-sse.ch/pdf/Instructions_Tsantsa.pdf

Thank you for sending this call to potential contributors!