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A new and often controversial theoretical orientation that resonates strongly with wider developments in contemporary philosophy and social theory, the so-called 'ontological turn' is receiving a great deal of attention in anthropology and cognate disciplines at present. This book provides the first anthropological exposition of this recent intellectual development. It traces the roots of the ontological turn in the history of anthropology and elucidates its emergence as a distinct theoretical orientation over the past few decades, showing how it has emerged in the work of Roy Wagner, Marilyn Strathern and Viveiros de Castro, as well a number of younger scholars. Distinguishing this trajectory of thinking from related attempts to put questions of ontology at the heart of anthropological research, the book articulates critically the key methodological and theoretical tenets of the ontological turn, its prime epistemological and political implications, and locates it in the broader intellectual landscape of contemporary social theory.

This book examines the concept of Principled Engagement as an often overlooked alternative strategy for alleviating human rights violations and improving the framework of human rights protection. Written by leading academics and practitioners, the book takes a general, comparative approach to human rights policy that teases out broad lessons about what works. Ultimately, this is a study that challenges scholars and practitioners alike to take a fresh look at how human rights are promoted internationally.

This article proposes an anthropological extension of the so-called Copenhagen School theory of securitization in International Relations. In contrast to existing attempts to show how, suitably elaborated, this model can be 'applied' to various non-Western contexts, our anthropological strategy is to use the contingency of empirical materials (namely the Cuban Revolution and the political forms it instantiates) as a means for transforming the basic coordinates of the model itself. The argument involves two main steps. First we relativize the Copenhagen School model, showing the contingency of its premises. In its paradigmatic form, we argue, the model is liberal in that its abiding concern with states of emergency turns on an ontological distinction between political subjects (e.g. people) and political structures (e.g. state). By contrast, revolutionary politics in Cuba concertedly rescinds just this distinction, to bring about an alternative, non-liberal political ontology. We then go on to use the Cuban case to construct an alternative model of securitization, which we call revolutionary. On this model, the move of securitization pertains, not to a passage from ordinary politics into a realm of emergency, but to a deliberate ontological fusion of the two, such that rule and exception also become coterminous.

"A comparative anthropological study of Chinese globalization, this book explores the emergence of a global polity and the implications of collaborative endeavors and failures through ethnographic fieldwork on Chinese infrastructure and resource-extraction projects in Mongolia and Mozambique."

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- A Note on Transliteration and Currencies -- Introduction -- 1. Friendship Empire: How a Chinese En -- 2. Whose Walls? A Chinese Mining Enclave in the Gobi Desert -- 3. Roads That Separate: How a Chinese Oil Company Failed to Detach Itself from Its Mongolian Surroundings -- 4. Strategies of Unseeing: The Possible Superimposition of a "Chinatown" on the Catembe Peninsula -- 5. Enclaves and Envelopes: Cutting and Connecting Relations in Sino-Mozambican Workplaces -- 6. Alterity in the Interior: Tree Scouts, Spirits, and Chinese Loggers in the Forests of Northern Mozambique -- Conclusion -- Notes -- References -- Index