Dependence

Dependence is often considered as a primarily negative state of being. It has gone from being described threat to individual self-reliance in early modern political theory Western Europe moral panic discourse across the world. Its connotation particularly evident spheres politics and economics, which this entry will focus on. Although anthropological only recently made dependence topic explicit theoretical reflection, idea underpinned wide variety approaches throughout discipline’s history. Given tendency anthropologists stress fundamental interdependence human beings, they have emphasised that not always bad thing can even be desirable. They also questioned whether or we neatly divide world’s population into those states versus independence. Lastly, performative effects ascribing some independence others. Ethnographically sifting through different ascriptions becomes important today, assumed become key tools management populations