Purple Politics: Electoral Realities, Democratic Possibilities, and Hope in the Sunflower State

Abstract

The hues we cast on partisan politics erase the richness, complexity, community, and hope of our polity from our political imaginary. I seek to counteract this reduction by asserting purple politics as an anthropological methodology that privileges the experiences and political positionalities of the people within Kansas’s political environment. Through a combination of ethnographic research and electoral data analysis, I examine how individuals and communities orient themselves and engage within this political system. I look at three regions across the state to see how material conditions, moral alignments, ethnic tensions, and political cultures influence how individuals facilitate and prohibit democratic politics. Across the experiences of my interlocutors, I trace the prevalence and political practice of hope.