Headlines of Nation, Subtexts of Class: Working Class Populism and the Return of the Repressed in Neoliberal Europe

by Don Kalb (editor), Gabor Halmai (Editor)

This is an excellent volume . . . [that] offers major theoretical and ethnographic insights not just with reference to neoliberal processes but also to the general understanding of state transformations . . . The overall theme of the book - the importance of bringing class back into anthropological concerns - and a shift away from culturalist/essentialist understandings (especially in relation to nationalism) is well-taken and developed. The book will be a major contribution towards reasserting the importance of an attention to class-based discussion. Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen[A] must-read. In the best tradition of Eric Wolf and Sydney Mintz, this book is a powerful example of the anthropological rethinking of class analysis that is necessary for grasping the contradictions of post-Cold War globalization . . . [I]t addresses one of the most challenging issues of our time - the power of the new right. Ida Susser, Hunter College and Graduate Center of the City University of New York

Kalb's introductory essay is a tour de force, which shows how the various contributions add up to more than the sum of the parts. It will secure a wide readership in the social sciences, history and cultural studies. Gavin Smith, University of Toronto

Since 1989 neo-nationalism has grown as a volatile political force in almost all European societies in tandem with the formation of a neoliberal European Union and wider capitalist globalizations. Focusing on working classes situated in long-run localized processes of social change, including processes of dispossession and disenfranchisement, this volume investigates how the experiences, histories and relationships of social class are a necessary ingredient for explaining the re-emergence and dynamics of populist nationalism in both Eastern and Western Europe. Featuring in-depth urban and regional case studies from Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Italy and Scotland, this volume reclaims class for anthropological research and lays out a new interdisciplinary agenda for studying identity politics in the intensifying neoliberal conjuncture.

Don Kalb is Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University, Budapest, and Senior Researcher at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Gbor Halmai is a PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University in Budapest.

230 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2007