Árpád Szakolczai Libri

Focusing on methodology in political anthropology, the book critiques the notion of scientific neutrality prevalent in human and social sciences. It advocates for a participatory approach, emphasizing that engagement is essential for achieving a deeper social and political understanding. By challenging conventional perspectives, it offers a fresh lens through which to analyze political dynamics and anthropological research.

It is widely asserted that we are now living in a post-truth society. What that means, this book argues, is that the contemporary world is thoroughly infested by a trickster logic - an argument advanced by the claim that in modernity liminality has become permanent; or that modern life is patently absurd.

For graduate students and researchers in anthropological theory, this book offers a renewal of social theory through anthropological concepts such as liminality, trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, participation, and gift relations, by revisiting the rise of the modern world and its sociology via key ideas developed by 'maverick' anthropologists.