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E-book
Author Westermeyer, William H., author

Title Back to America : identity, political culture, and the Tea Party movement / William H. Westermeyer
Published Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, [2019]

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Description 1 online resource (ix, 222 pages)
Series Anthropology of contemporary North America
Anthropology of contemporary North America.
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
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. -- Publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on November 04, 2019)
Subject Tea Party movement -- United States
Identity politics -- United States
Political psychology -- United States
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations)
Identity politics
Political psychology
Tea Party movement
Identitätspolitik
Politische Psychologie
Tea-Party-Bewegung
United States
USA
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781496218940
1496218949