Subversive Archaism

In Subversive Archaism, Michael Herzfeld explores the challenge that subversive archaism"-the ideology and practice of using state discourses of heritage and tradition against state authority-poses to governments both authoritarian and democratic. Building on the legacy of violence underlying all national independence movements, subversive archaists emphasize details of national history that reflect their own local values-rather than Eurocentric bureaucratic perspectives-to claim legitimacy for their defiance of official authority. The core of the book, while drawing on a wide range of examples, particularly concerns the actions and eventual fate of two communities: one, a supposedly remote mountain village in Greece traditionally notorious for endemicanimal-theft and now accused of being a center of illegal drug cultivation and distribution, the other a small urban enclave in Thailand that became a cause câeláebre as its leaders tried for a quarter-century to resist eviction as squatters. In contrasted but also complementary ways, these two communities illustrate the strengths and vulnerabilities of subversive archaism as a political stance and strategy amid today's globalizing dynamics"--