Controlling Processes

<p><b><i>Controlling Processes</i></b><b> offers a penetrating anthropological analysis of how power operates through cultural mechanisms in agrarian and modern industrial societies.</b></p><p>Drawing on decades of research and teaching, Laura Nader explores:</p><p> The multiple meanings and ideological frameworks embedded in dominant conceptions of science, technology, progress, energy, and the environment.<br/> A compelling critique of groupthink, illuminated through George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, revealing how consensus can mask coercion.<br/> The systemic oppression of women through body politics and the global diffusion of patriarchal norms.<br/> Cultural relativism and the politics of representation, with incisive discussions of Orientalism, Islam, and the West's positional superiority.<br/> A model of critical pedagogy inspired by Paulo Freire, exemplified in Nader's influential University of California, Berkeley course, Anthropology 139: Controlling Processes, whose syllabus is included as a practical guide.<br/> Strategies for recognizing and resisting the subtle, often invisible, controlling processes embedded in education and public discourse.</p><p>This volume is essential reading for scholars of anthropology, sociology, political science, and education seeking to understand the cultural dimensions of power and the possibilities for emancipatory critique.</p>