A01=Michael Herzfeld
Author_Michael Herzfeld
Blood Symbolism
Bureaucratic Interaction
Bureaucratic Practice
Category=JP
Character Attribution
Duck
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eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
European national bureaucracy
Fight Back
Follow
Godfathers
Greek Citizen
Hold
Inclined
indifference
Modern Nation State
National Language
NATO
Prophecies
Secular Theodicy
social production
Sri Lankan
stereotypes
Symbolic Pollution
symbolic roots
Ta Nea
Theodicy
Timeless
Unstable
Violated
Western Bureaucracies
Product details
- ISBN 9780367717179
- Weight: 258g
- Dimensions: 138 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 31 Mar 2021
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
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In this fascinating book, Michael Herzfeld argues that 'modern' bureaucratically regulated societies are no more 'rational' or less 'symbolic' than the societies traditionally studied by anthropologists. Drawing primarily on the example of modern Greece and utilizing other European materials, he suggests that we cannot understand national bureaucracies divorced from local-level ideas about chance, personal character, social relationships and responsibility. He points out that both formal regulations and day-to-day bureaucratic practices rely heavily on the symbols and language of the moral boundaries between insiders and outsiders; a ready means of expressing prejudice and of justifying neglect. It therefore happens that societies with proud traditions of generous hospitality may paradoxically produce at the official level some of the most calculated indifference one can find anywhere.
Michael Herzfeld is Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University
