Anthropology of the State

Catalog description

This class seeks to familiarize students with a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological tools for a study of the state. The social sciences have long deconstructed the image of the state as a coherent unit (along with the Weberian ideal of a neutral bureaucracy) but the idea remains globally prevalent. Therefore, this course's central objective is to contemplate and rethink diverse conceptions of the state in order to open new perspectives and develop the methodological tools necessary for comprehending the state in a distinctively anthropological manner. Our discussions will center around ethnographic and other social scientific research that emphasize the state as a historically situated reality, embodied in the work of its agents and negotiated in everyday encounters with citizens. Important question include how bureaucratic interactions mobilize values and emotions and thereby (re)produce the state, as well as classificatory systems of inclusion and forms of marginalization. Therefore, we will investigate seemingly negative or coercive aspects of states, such as border regimes and military practices, but also aspects that could be seen as their benevolent side, like welfare bureaucracies. By reading different anthropological, humanities, and other social science texts, we will ask how can one think of and research the state, what types of relations characterize different state formations, what kind of routines and subjectivities are formed in interaction with diverse state actors, how well Western concepts of the state, sovereignty, bureaucratic rationality travel to non-Western contexts, how citizens experience and relate to the state in their day to day lives, and how we can think about alternative forms of governing?