What contribution can Anthropology make to the study of the state Flashcards
(39 cards)
What are the 4 points
Reified entity
Cultural concept
Power relations within it
Small scale opinions is the best bit about anthropology for the state
What is the argument
Anthropology is able to draw on traditional geographic and political science theoretical conceptions of the state to integrate the theory and its distinctive fieldwork
What are the 5 ethnographic examples
Abu Lughod Bedouin Women
Obeid 2010 lebease border town -> occupants of a nation state are not necessarily its citizens
Jansen 2014 desire for the state Sarajevo
Harvey and Knox 2012
Cohen 1989
What is meant by the state as a reified entity
though it is an abstract concept, it is made real by governments, by people’s understanding of it
What is the reference for the reification of the state?
Gupta and Ferguson 2006
What, according to Jones et al 2004, does territory do?
Makes the state legible
What does sovereignty do to state legibility
it gives it a location
Following agamben, how does sovereignty make the state real?
IT gives it an exception
How do we understand sovereignty following Elden 2009?
As a bounded space under a group of people
When is the imagined community
1983
Who imagines the nation state?
Those who perceive themselves to be a part of it, even though no one in that group is ever going to meet everyone else within this group
What is the link to the next paragraph from Anderson 1983
Social construction
What can anthropology be particularly well placed to acknowledge about the social construction of the state
Its eurocentricity; exposing other forms and imaginaries even through its classical approaches just as Evans Pritchard
What does Beneditct anderson argue about nationalism?
Historically modern, but perched by many to be old and timeless
What does Marston 2004 say about nationalism?
Needs to be seen as a determinant of the state, rather than an artefact of it
What needs to be integrated into the essay at one point, perhaps during the cultural construction paragraph?
Weberian understanding of the state
What is the Weberian understanding of the state?
The state is law and administration exercising domination over a territory
What is important to acknowledge about the Weberian conception of the state?
That it is naturally not going to be homogenous
What is the third paragraph?
The state and power relations
What does Marston 2004 say about power and the state?
That the state is not a source of power but its effect; an arena for power
How are ethnographies brought into the power paragraph?
How power varies based on where in state you are.
What does Harvey and Know 2012 look at
Peru
What does Anderson 2016 argue about borders?
That they produce, rather than reflect states
What is the final paragraph?
Appraisal of the small scale and how anthropology is adept at analysing it