Aaron Kappeler

University of Edinburgh, Social Anthropology, Faculty Member

University of Toronto, Anthropology, Alumnus

Central European University, Institute for Advanced Study, Post-Doc

Union College, Schenectady, Anthropology, Faculty Member

Followers

Following

Public Views

Dr. Kappeler is an ethnographic researcher and Director of Admissions for the PhD in International Development at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to joining Edinburgh, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College, a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Toronto.
Address: Department of Social Anthropology
School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh

less

InterestsView All (9)

Uploads

Papers by Aaron Kappeler

Beyond Cold-War Mythology and Reifications: An Appraisal of The Object of Labor

Dialectical Anthropology, 2024

One of the most persistent myths about socialism in Central and Eastern Europe is that it had no ... more One of the most persistent myths about socialism in Central and Eastern Europe is that it had no genuine popular base and was merely "installed" by the advancing Red Army as it closed in on Berlin in 1944-1945. The states which emerged from the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany-officially referred to as "People's Democracies"-allegedly had no organic relationship to the societies they ruled, and they imposed on their citizens a minority dictatorship whose political tradition was completely alien to their values and aspirations. Indeed, many histories of Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century open in precisely this way. Those writers less overtly sympathetic to fascism frequently assert that the region "traded one totalitarianism for another" and that this history has held back its "democratization" ever since. It follows logically, then, that the collapse of the socialist bloc was a product of the weakness at its political centre and that it was the faltering of Soviet home rule, which caused the occupier to first loosen its grip, before finally releasing all its unwilling satellites. None of this, as it turns out, was true. In her classic ethnography of work and rural life in socialist Hungary, Martha Lampland (1995) shows how tropes of radical alterity linked to the introduction and decline of the centrally planned economy draw on a host of unsupported, and ultimately untenable, assumptions. In this historical account of the social transformations unleashed by land reform and the reorganization of national industry, Lampland takes to task North

Download

After the boom: Petro-politics and the fate of revolution in Venezuela

Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 2024

Download

The Devil and Florentino: Specters of Petro-Populism in Venezuela

Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2024

Download

Breeding Sovereignty: The Production of Race, Nature, and Capital in Venezuela

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2023

This article explores the efforts of the Venezuelan government to improve food security and rural... more This article explores the efforts of the Venezuelan government to improve food security and rural livelihoods with an experimental cattle-breeding project. It investigates the activities of a state enterprise in the western plains and how the selective-breeding practices of veterinary experts intersect with the logic of capital and biopolitics. Contributing to debates on the interaction between society and environment, the analysis suggests that ‘endogenous development’, or the reduction of poverty through internal markets, draws on systems of knowledge that treat the biology of animals as a field of intervention for the resolution of social contradictions. To reduce reliance on petroleum rent and food imports, Venezuelan experts have sought to create a new breed of cattle suited to the nation’s diverse ecologies. But the knowledge systems which guide this project are embedded with a host of cultural and economic assumptions that subvert the successful application of this biotechnology. Ultimately, this article seeks to increase knowledge of the techno-politics of resource states at the start of the twenty-first century and the ways in which cultures of expertise impact food sovereignty.

Carrier, James G. (ed.). A research agenda for economic anthropology. viii, 158 pp., bibliogrs. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019. £75.00 (cloth)

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2020

Download

From Reactionary Modernization to Endogenous Development: The Revolution in Hydroelectricity in Venezuela

Dialectical Anthropology, 2017

For much of the twentieth century, Venezuela was regarded as one of the developing nations destin... more For much of the twentieth century, Venezuela was regarded as one of the developing nations destined to take its place among the affluent societies of the world. The spectacular infrastructure projects sponsored by the Venezuelan government and funded with revenue from the petroleum industry were taken as evidence of progress and the impending arrival of modernity. Showcasing the technical prowess of the Venezuelan state, these projects captured the national imagination and won consent for elites by calling forth aspirations for total societal transformation. In this article, I explore the re-construction of hegemonic consent as part of one such project-a hydroelectric dam in the state of Barinas-and the survival of a vision of progress through the built environment, even after the social-economic crisis of the late twentieth century. Drawing on fieldwork in areas near the formerly incomplete project site, I account for what, at first glance, seem to be drastic shifts in local political allegiances and incongruous support for the military dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez (1948)(1949)(1950)(1951)(1952)(1953)(1954)(1955)(1956)(1957)(1958) and the Bolivarian Government of Hugo Chavez. Suggesting that a high modernist vision of development is a pivot for hegemonic consent, I argue that the completion of this dam after a long hiatus has won the support of a caste of state workers and that the backing of these workers is crucial to the preservation of organized political power.

Download

Coffee and Socialism in the Venezuelan Andes

Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 2019

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the highlands of Barinas, this article investigates the impact... more Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the highlands of Barinas, this article investigates the impact of “twenty-first century socialist” policies on the Andean peasantry and the relationships established as part of Venezuela’s ongoing agrarian reform. The analysis explores the historical and material-cultural factors surrounding the production of coffee in the Andes and the dynamics, which have shaped a small group of growers. It also examines the recent efforts of the Bolivarian Government to increase domestic coffee production and support internal growers, suggesting that attempts to insert the state into the rentier structure of the coffee economy have somewhat inadvertently fostered working class consciousness. The ethnographic vignette illustrates the present relationship of state functionaries to coffee growers and narrates their analysis of the conditions, showing the contradictory effect these relations have on growers. The rest of the analysis locates the sources of this social awareness and its potential effect on state formation. The article concludes with a discussion of the role of hegemony in history and a few observations about the future of peasant politics in the twenty-first century.

Download

Nature, Capital and Neighborhoods: “Dispossession without Accumulation”?

Antipode, 2011

The ongoing economic crisis, which originated in the USA and has since spread rapidly to capital ... more The ongoing economic crisis, which originated in the USA and has since spread rapidly to capital markets worldwide, is massive, complex, and many times contradictory. One could say the same for responses to the crisis as governments, firms and multi-national institutions struggle to grasp the full magnitude of the event. This article interrogates the key commodities involved-land, labor and money-and the always-uneasy relations between spaces of social reproduction and capital. Such ambivalence is critical to understanding how new economic realities are formed in light of retreating neoliberalism as markets become destabilized. The analysis provided suggests the commodities involved in the housing crisis are the basis for a countermovement against dispossession.

Download

Beyond Cold-War Mythology and Reifications: An Appraisal of The Object of Labor

Dialectical Anthropology, 2024

Download

After the boom: Petro-politics and the fate of revolution in Venezuela

Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology, 2024

Download

The Devil and Florentino: Specters of Petro-Populism in Venezuela

Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2024

Download

Breeding Sovereignty: The Production of Race, Nature, and Capital in Venezuela

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2023