[Linganth] James Slotta's book

[Ilana Gershon]

Dear Colleagues,
Today I interview James Slotta about his book, Anarchy and the Art of
Listening
on the CaMP anthropology blog.

https://campanthropology.org/

Best,
Ilana

Press blurb*: Anarchy and the Art **of Listening* is an ethnography of
politics as it is practiced on the other side of the spoken word, in the
act of listening. James Slotta explores how people in the Yopno Valley of
Papua New Guinea cultivate their listening to exercise power, shape their
futures, and sustain their communities in the face of ambitious leaders and
powerful outside institutions.

As in many parts of the global south, missionaries, NGO workers, educators,
mining companies, politicians, development experts, and others have sought
to transform life in and around the Yopno Valley. But as this book makes
clear, people there have not been a passive and pliable audience for these
efforts. They have brought their skills as "anarchic listeners" to these
encounters, advancing political agendas of their own.

To understand political life in the Yopno Valley, we need to look not only
at political speech but at the practices that lie on the other side of the
word in the act of listening. This, Slotta suggests, is also true well
beyond the bounds of the Yopno Valley.
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