Epilogue

Mapping the Topography of Oppression

in Anthropology of the Middle East
Author:
Jenny White Stockholm University jenny.white@su.se

Search for other papers by Jenny White in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
Restricted access

During today’s crisis in Turkey, victimhood authorises oppression, oppressors see themselves as victims and the oppressed are not only the poor, but educated middle classes. Citizen and state are imbricated in the same political and discursive fields where people mobilise against one another, some moving up and others down, creating unexpected landscapes of victimisation and oppression that do not fit comfortably in literature that analyses ‘politics from below’. How do we conceptualise this in a way that respects people’s understanding of their coordinates in a complex landscape of power? This article interrogates some basic assumptions of this literature, including the impact of the observer’s position and the oppression/resistance framework, replacing it with a model of politics as a shared horizontal topography of action across a terrain of values.

  • Collapse
  • Expand

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 232 99 6
Full Text Views 32 3 0
PDF Downloads 47 3 0