A01=Brinkley Messick
administrative contracts
anthropology
anthropology of law
Author_Brinkley Messick
authority
Category=DSA
Category=JBSL11
Category=JHM
Category=NHB
Category=QRP
comparative studies in muslim societies
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
history
innovative
islam
islamic jurisprudence
islamic law
islamic legal education
islamic legal practice
legal contracts
legality
local documents
middle eastern history
modern power
modernization
muslim
muslim society
nation state
orality
political life
politics
postmodernism
postmodernity
sacred scriptures
textuality
writing
yemen
yemeni history
yemeni society
Product details
- ISBN 9780520205154
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 156 x 232mm
- Publication Date: 16 Jun 1996
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In this innovative combination of anthropology, history, and postmodern theory, Brinkley Messick examines the changing relation of writing and authority in a Muslim society from the late nineteenth century to the present. The creation and interpretation of texts, from sacred scriptures to administrative and legal contracts, are among the fundamental ways that authority is established and maintained in a complex state. Yet few scholars have explored this process and the ways in which it changes, especially outside the Western world. Messick brings together intensive ethnography and textual analysis from a wealth of material: Islamic jurisprudence, Yemeni histories, local documents. In exploring the structure and transformation of literacy, law, and statecraft in Yemen, he raises important issues that are of comparative significance for understanding political life in other Muslim and nonwestern states as well.
Brinkley Messick is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan.
