Back to America Identity, Political Culture, and the Tea Party Movement / William H. Westermeyer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Westermeyer, William H., author.

Series:

Anthropology of contemporary North America.

Anthropology of contemporary North America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political psychology--United States.

Political psychology.

Identity politics--United States.

Identity politics.

Tea Party movement--United States.

Tea Party movement.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 222 pages).

Manufacture:

Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2019

Place of Publication:

Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2019]

Summary:

Back to America is an ethnography of local activist groups within the Tea Party, one of the most important recent political movements to emerge in the United States and one that continues to influence American politics. Though often viewed as the brainchild of conservative billionaires and Fox News, the success of the Tea Party movement was as much, if not more, the result of everyday activists at the grassroots level. William H. Westermeyer traces how local Tea Party groups (LTPGs) create submerged spaces where participants fashion action-oriented collective and personal political identities forged in the context of cultural or figured worlds. These figured worlds allow people to establish meaningful links between their own lives and concerns, on the one hand, and the movement's goals and narratives, on the other. Collectively, the production and circulation of the figured worlds within LTPGs provide the basis for subjectivities that often nurture political activism. Westermeyer reveals that LTPGs are vibrant and independent local organizations that, while constantly drawing on nationally disseminated cultural images and discourses, are far from simple agents of the larger organizations and the media. Back to America offers a welcome anthropological approach to this important social movement and to our understanding of grassroots political activism writ large.

Contents:

Patriots : fashioning a figured world of Tea Party politics

Troubles : making personal meaning in the Tea Party movement

Plantation politics : race in the figured world of the Tea Party

Fellowship : local Tea Party groups as communities of political practice

Trickle-up politics : local Tea Party groups as movement actors in local politics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4962-1894-9

OCLC:

1124992534