Challenging Authorities: Ethnographies of Legitimacy and Power in Eastern and Southern Africa

Book Overview

When the notion of 'alternative facts' and the alleged dawning of a 'postfactual' world entered public discourse, social anthropologists found themselves in unexpectedly familiar territory. In theirempirical experience, fact--knowledge accepted as true--derives its salience from social mechanisms of legitimization, thereby demonstrating a deep interconnection with power and authority. In thisperspective, fact is a continually contested and volatile...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3030769232
• ISBN13: 9783030769239
• Release Date: September 2021
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 459 Pages
• Weight: 1.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.8" x 8.3"