Ethnographies of the state have undergone increased scrutiny over recent years. There are several reasons for that: Weber’s famous definition of the state as the ‘human community successfully claiming the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory’ has been contested by state-deniers such as Radcliffe-Brown (1940/2006) or later ‘fetishists’ including Abrams (1988) and Taussig (1992). They acknowledged the need to pin down the state in practices of everyday life rather than as an abstract ‘fetishised’ unity. Most recently, heightened influence of globalised companies ('corporate turn', Kapferer, 2005), NGOs and transnational organisations such as the IMF and the world bank (Trouillot, 2001) dispersed centres of sovereignty even further. Following historical developments, the study of the state has come full turn from Hobbes’s ‘Leviathan’ to Foucault’s ‘capillaries’. I will briefly mention several different ethnographic analytics that can help to still trace the state and its effects in this multi-dimensional context – introducing notions of institutions, culture and history as locations for state power – before I focus on the study of a seemingly non-state political expression: resistance. I examine Abu-Lughod’s (1990) mighty claim that where we find resistance, there is power (i.e. the state) with the help of ethnographic case studies from Egypt (Ali, 1996), Botswana (Comaroff, 1985), Malaysia (Scott, 1989), India (Nandy, 1983) and Turkey (Navaro-Yashin, 2002).
Table of Contents
1. How does an ethnography of the state look like? Put special emphasis on the analytical category of resistance.
Objectives and Themes
This work examines the evolution of the anthropological study of the state, focusing on how power relations are traced through everyday practices and resistance rather than abstract institutional frameworks. It explores how ethnographic insights into non-state political expressions reveal the complexities of state authority and control in a globalized, fragmented world.
- Theoretical shift from Weberian institutionalism to decentralized "capillary" power.
- The role of everyday resistance as a "chemical catalyst" for uncovering power structures.
- The interplay between state authority and transnational actors, NGOs, and corporations.
- Cultural and bodily dimensions of resistance as manifestations of counter-hegemonic practice.
- Critical evaluation of resistance as an analytical category in contemporary ethnography.
Excerpt from the Book
How does an ethnography of the state look like? Put special emphasis on the analytical category of resistance.
Weber (1918) very clearly marked the realm of the state in a dichotomy of violence and reason. According to him, the state-power is concerned with the ‘legitimate’ (and considerate) use of violence within a given territory. Inherent in this definition is the creation of (geographical) boundaries vis-à-vis a wilderness and the constant effort to fight ‘savages’ both within (criminals, lawless) and external to it (borders). Radcliffe-Brown (1940/2006) with his outlook on acephalos states in the African context critiques this rigid definition from a one might say relational perspective. Instead of a unitary state as an entity above human individuals, he observes the collection of human beings connected in complex systems of relational roles. An entity-state does not exist in the phenomenal world “it is a fiction of the philosopher”.
Abrams (1988) and Taussig (1992) both go even further in their critical evaluation of what the state is (and how one might be able to observe it). Abrams claims that the state is not merely masked behind a façade but rather the mask itself. The state – in its unitary sense – prevents us from seeing political practice as it is. It much more comes into being as a structuration within political practice, as an implicit construct – as a social rather than material fact. The task of the present-day anthropologist is to demystify this mask by studying the institutions (administrative, juridical, educational) and their effects. Taussig (1992) follows a similar path denouncing the state as – in a Marxist sense – a fetishism.
Summary of Chapters
How does an ethnography of the state look like? Put special emphasis on the analytical category of resistance.: This chapter provides an overview of the shifting theoretical landscape in political anthropology, moving from classical definitions of the state toward a focus on everyday practices, decentralized power structures, and the analytical significance of resistance.
Keywords
Ethnography, State, Resistance, Power, Sovereignty, Globalization, Institutions, Culture, Subaltern, Biopolitics, Agency, Hegemony, Colonialism, Everyday Practices, Anthropology
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core focus of this work?
The work explores how contemporary anthropologists study the state by shifting away from abstract, monolithic definitions toward decentralized, everyday processes and acts of resistance.
What are the central themes discussed?
Central themes include the transition from institutional perspectives to "capillary" power, the role of transnational actors, the use of resistance as an analytical tool, and the impact of global flows on local sovereignty.
What is the primary objective of the research?
The primary objective is to demonstrate how analyzing "hidden" or everyday resistance allows researchers to trace the limits and effects of state power, even when institutions appear decentralized or outsourced.
Which scientific methods are primarily utilized?
The work utilizes a synthesis of ethnographic literature reviews, applying qualitative case studies from diverse regions—including Egypt, Botswana, Malaysia, India, and Turkey—to theorize state-society relations.
What topics are covered in the main body?
The text covers the historical evolution of state theory, the impact of neoliberal and transnational "rhizomes of power," the utility of resistance (e.g., "weapons of the weak"), and the critique of resistance as a universal analytical category.
Which keywords best characterize this research?
Key terms include Ethnography, State, Resistance, Power, Sovereignty, Globalization, and Subalternity.
How does the author define the "mask of the state"?
Following Abrams, the author argues that the state is not an entity hiding behind a facade, but is the "mask" itself—an implicit construct that shapes political perception and hides the actual complexity of social practices.
Why is the case of the Irish prisoners' "dirty protest" significant?
This case serves as a poignant example of "biopolitics," where the body itself becomes a political field, demonstrating how resistance can challenge civilizational discourses and state control in tangible, physical ways.
Does the author consider resistance a universal analytical tool?
No, the author critically addresses and disputes the "all-encompassing" nature of resistance as a tool, noting that it can fail as an analytical category if it lacks sufficient cultural and historical context.
- Quote paper
- Johannes Lenhard (Author), 2013, The Ethnography of the State. Special Emphasis on the Analytical Category of Resistance, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/230434
