Overview
- Focusing on the social and power relations on an industrial town
- Includes landscape as well as health-related research from the site which further demostrate the social, capitalistic and power relations in this community
- Makes use of GIS technology, which is becoming more prominently used in archaeological work
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology (CGHA)
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
How do people experience power within capitalist societies? Research presented here explicitly addresses the notion of pluralistic power, which encompasses both productive and oppressive forms of power and acknowledges that nuanced and multifaceted power relations can exist in combination with binary dynamics such as domination and resistance. This volume addresses growing interests in linking past and present power relationships engendered by capitalism and in conducting historical archaeology as anthropology.
The Plurality of Power: Industrial Capitalism and the Nineteenth-Century Company Town of Fayette, Michigan, explores the subtle distribution of power within American industrial capitalism through a case study of a company town. Issues surrounding power and agency are explored in regard to three heuristic categories of power. In the first category, the company imposed a system of structural, class-based power that is most visible in hierarchical differences in pay and housing, as well as consumer behavior. A second category addresses disciplinary activities surrounding health and the human body, as observed in the built environment, medical artifacts, disposal patterns of industrial waste, incidence of intestinal parasites, and unequal access to healthcare. The third ensemble of power relations is heterarcical and entwined with non-economic capital (social, symbolic, and cultural). Individuals and groups drew upon different forms of capital to bolster social status and express identity both within and apart from the corporate hierarchy. The goal in combining these diverse ideas is to explore the plurality of power relationships in past industrial contexts and to assert their relevance in the anthropology of capitalism.
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Authors and Affiliations
About the author
The author received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2008, with a major in archaeology and a minor in sociocultural anthropology. Her M.S. in Industrial Archaeology is from Michigan Technological University. She also has over a decade of experience working in cultural resource management around the United States.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Plurality of Power
Book Subtitle: An Archaeology of Industrial Capitalism
Authors: Sarah E. Cowie
Series Title: Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8306-0
Publisher: Springer New York, NY
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4419-8305-3Published: 21 February 2011
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4614-2811-4Published: 19 April 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4419-8306-0Published: 15 February 2011
Series ISSN: 1574-0439
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 210
Topics: Archaeology, Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning, Environmental Health