Laughing at Leviathan Sovereignty and Audience in West Papua - Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning
Paperback (27 Apr 2012)
Save $2.90
RRP $37.95- $35.05
Includes delivery to the United States
10+ copies available online - Usually dispatched within two working days
Check stock
For West Papua and its people, the promise of sovereignty has never been realized, despite a long and fraught struggle for independence from Indonesia. In Laughing at Leviathan, Danilyn Rutherford examines this struggle through a series of interlocking essays that drive at the core meaning of sovereignty itself-how it is fueled, formed, and even thwarted by pivotal but often overlooked players: those that make up an audience. Whether these players are citizens, missionaries, competing governmental powers, nongovernmental organizations, or the international community at large, Rutherford shows how a complex interplay of various observers is key to the establishment and understanding of the sovereign nation-state.
Drawing on a wide array of sources, from YouTube videos to Dutch propaganda to her own fieldwork observations, Rutherford draws the history of Indonesia, empire, and postcolonial nation-building into a powerful examination of performance and power. Ultimately she revises Thomas Hobbes, painting a picture of the Leviathan not as a coherent body but a fragmented one distributed across a wide range of both real and imagined spectators. In doing so, she offers an important new approach to the understanding of political struggle.
Book information
ISBN: | 9780226731988 |
Publisher: | University of Chicago Press |
Imprint: | The University of Chicago Press |
Pub date: | 27 Apr 2012 |
DEWEY: | 995.1 |
DEWEY edition: | 23 |
Language: | English |
Number of pages: | 296 |
Weight: | 504g |
Height: | 229mm |
Width: | 153mm |
Spine width: | 22mm |