Christine A. Kray - Böcker

This book demonstrates the fragility of democratic norms and institutions, and the allure of fascist politics within the Trump era. The chapters consider the antagonistic cultural practices through which divergent political machinations, including white (patriarchal) nationalism, are staged, and examine the corresponding policies and governing practices that threaten the civil rights, security, and wellbeing of racialized minorities, immigrants, women, and gender nonconforming people. The book contributes to social theory on nation-building by delineating processes of exclusion, intimidation, and violence, with a focus on rhetoric, performance, semiotics, music, affectivity, and the power of media. Various chapters also analyze creative, restorative, and at times unruly practices of community building, which reknit the social fabric with expansive visions of the polity.This anthropology-led volume incorporates contributions from a number of disciplines including sociology, American studies, communication, and Spanish, and will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences and humanities.

This book demonstrates the fragility of democratic norms and institutions, and the allure of fascist politics within the Trump era. The chapters consider the antagonistic cultural practices through which divergent political machinations, including white (patriarchal) nationalism, are staged, and examine the corresponding policies and governing practices that threaten the civil rights, security, and wellbeing of racialized minorities, immigrants, women, and gender nonconforming people. The book contributes to social theory on nation-building by delineating processes of exclusion, intimidation, and violence, with a focus on rhetoric, performance, semiotics, music, affectivity, and the power of media. Various chapters also analyze creative, restorative, and at times unruly practices of community building, which reknit the social fabric with expansive visions of the polity.This anthropology-led volume incorporates contributions from a number of disciplines including sociology, American studies, communication, and Spanish, and will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences and humanities.

A look at how Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and American voters invoked ideas of gender and race in the fiercely contested 2016 US presidential electionGender and racial politics were at the center of the 2016 US presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The election was historic because Clinton was the first woman nominated by a major political party for thepresidency. Yet it was also historic in its generation of sustained reflection on the past. Clinton's campaign linked her with suffragist struggles--represented perhaps most poignantly by the parade of visitors to Susan B. Anthony's grave on Election Day--while Trump harnessed nostalgia through his promise to Make America Great Again. This collection of essays looks at the often vitriolic rhetoric that characterized the election: "nasty women" vs. "deplorables"; "bad hombres" and "Crooked Hillary"; analyzing the struggle and its result through the lenses of gender, race, and their intersections, and with particular attention to the roles of memory, performance, narrative, and social media.Contributors examine the ways that gender and racial hierarchies intersected and reinforced one another throughout the campaign season. Trump's association of Mexican immigrants with crime, and specifically with rape, for example, drew upon a long history of fearmongering that stereotypes Mexican men--and men of other immigrant and minority groups--as sexual aggressors against white women. At the same time, in response to both Trump'smisogynistic rhetoric and the iconic power of Clinton's candidacy, feminist consciousness grew steadily across the nation. Analyzing these phenomena, the volume's authors--both journalists and academics--engage with prominent debates in their diverse fields, while an epilogue by the editors considers recent ongoing developments like the #metoo movement.CHRISTINE A. KRAY is Associate Professor of Anthropology, TAMAR W. CARROLL is Associate Professor of History, and HINDA MANDELL is Associate Professor in the School of Communication, all at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Maya-British Conflict at the Edge of the Yucatecan Caste War interrogates the 1862 alliance forged between the San Pedro Maya and the British during the Caste War of Yucatán (1847–1901). Illuminating the complex interactions among Maya groups, Yucatecans of Spanish descent, and British settlers in what is now Belize, Christine A. Kray uses storytelling techniques, suspense, and humor, via historical documents and oral history interviews to tell a new story about the dynamics at the heart of the Social War.  Official British declarations of neutrality in the Caste War were confounded by a variety of political and economic factors, including competing land claims befuddled by a tangled set of treaties, mahogany extraction by British companies in contested territories, Maya rent demands, British trade in munitions to different groups of Maya combatants, and a labor system reliant on debt servitude. All these factors contributed to uneasy alliances and opportunistic crossings of imagined geopolitical borders in both directions, ultimately leading to a new military conflict in the western and northern regions of the territory claimed by Britain. What frequently began as hyper-local disputes spun out into international affairs as actors called upon more powerful groups for assistance. Evading reductionism, this work traces the decisions and actions of key figures as they maneuvered through the miasma of violence, abuse, deception, fear, flight, and glimpses of freedom.  Positioning the historiographic and ethnographic gaze on the English side without adopting the colonialist narratives and objectives found in English repositories, Maya-British Conflict at the Edge of the Yucatecan Caste War is an important and original contribution to a neglected area of study. It will appeal to students, scholars, and general readers interested in anthropology, Latin American cultures and history, Central American history, British imperialism, Indigenous rights, political anthropology, and colonialism and culture.