Local Democracy Under Siege:
Activism, Public Interests and Private Politics
 What
is the state of democracy at the turn of the 21st century? To answer
this question, seven scholars lived for a year in five North Carolina
communities. They observed public meetings of all sorts, had informal
and formal interviews with people, and listened as people conversed
with each other at bus stops and barber shops, soccer games and
workplaces. Their collaborative ethnography allows us to understand
how diverse members of a community-not just the elite-think about
and experience "politics" in ways that include much more
than merely voting.
This book illustrates how the social and economic changes of the
last three decades have made some new routes to active democratic
participation possible while making others more difficult. Local
Democracy Under Siege suggests how we can account for the current
limitations of U.S. democracy and how remedies can be created that
ensure more meaningful participation by a greater range of people.
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 About
the Authors
Complete List of Authors (pictured):
From Left to Right, bottom row: Enrique Murillo, Jr., Thaddeus
Guldbrandsen, Marla Frederick-McGlathery.
Top row: Dorothy Holland, Catherine Lutz, Lesley Bartlett, and Don
Nonini.
Dorothy Holland (anthropology.unc.edu/people/faculty/dholland) is Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished
Professor of Anthropology at University of North Carolina-Chapel
Hill.
Donald M. Nonini (anthropology.unc.edu/people/faculty/dnonini) is Professor of Anthropology
at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Catherine Lutz (www.watsoninstitute.org/contacts_detail.cfm?id=492) is Professor of Anthropology at
Brown University.
Lesley Bartlett (www.tc.columbia.edu/faculty/bartlett) is Assistant Professor of Comparative
and International Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Marla Frederick-McGlathery is Assistant Professor
of African and African American Studies and the Study of Religion
at Harvard University.
Thaddeus C. Guldbrandsen (www.plymouth.edu/rural) is Director of the Center
for Rural Partnerships and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology
at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
Enrique G. Murillo, Jr. (coe.csusb.edu/Murillo), is Associate Professor
of Language, Literacy & Culture in the College of Education,
California State University, San Bernardino.
What are people saying?
Local Democracy Under Siege argues persuasively
that American democracy is at a pivotal moment where the forces
of exclusion and the ideology of market rule contest with new forms
of political activism and engaged citizenship. Readers will see
many of the same issues that North Carolina faces in their own communities
and will take away new perspectives on power, race, class, and activism
from this cogent and timely analysis.
—Louise Lamphere, Past President of the American Anthropological
Association
Debates about democracy often get stuck at the national scale.
But the capacity for ordinary people to shape the conditions of
their lives through politics and public speech is often greatest
at the local level. This important book opens up anthropological
perspectives on how this happens. It situates the challenges of
local politics amid the constraints of neoliberalism, but also
reports on the creative solutions different communities have developed
to the distinctive problems they face.
—Craig Calhoun, President, Social Science Research Council
This book opens up the crucial questions of what democracy means
in the U.S. today and the ways in which everyday Americans struggle
to make themselves heard. Conceptually, methodologically, and
theoretically this book realizes the potential for anthropological
analysis as a way to understand the dangers of increasing inequality
in the contemporary U.S. It is a major contribution.
—Ida Susser, author of Norman Street: Poverty and Politics
in an Urban Neighborhood
"A luminous work about everyday citizens that should free
up local democratic energies across the land!"
—Aihwa Ong, author of Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations
in Citizenship and Sovereignty
"This unique study provides a vital enquiry into the troubled
times of local democracy and poses critical questions about its
future in the USA."
—John Clarke, author of Changing Welfare, Changing States
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