Summary
The
State at its Margins:
Comparative Ethnographies of the Modern State in Africa, Latin America, and
South Asia
The
very form and reach of the liberal or welfare state is undergoing
radical change in many parts of the world and is being dramatically
affected by increasing globalization. In April 2001, Deborah Poole
and Veena Das co-chaired an advanced seminar, "The State at
its Margins: Comparative Ethnographies of the Modern State in Africa,
Latin America, and South Asia." The term "margin" was
used not to describe a geographic border, but rather to describe
areas far from the centers of state sovereignty. It also refers
to the ways in which the state is unable to ensure implementation
of its programs and policies in these areas.
The seminar was designed to develop an ethnographic
methodology and theoretical apparatus to assess perceptions of power in three
regions where both state reform and violence have been particularly dramatic:
South Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Understanding how people perceive and
experience the agency of the state was a central theme of the seminar. "A
driving question for our sessions was—'how is the state experienced on a
daily basis?'" said Deborah Poole.
Documentation provided a way to trace the materiality
of the state in both its legitimate and illegitimate forms. "The falsification
of documents is a practice that replicates the power of the state as well as
undermines it," Poole observed. The question of "fixity" versus "mobility" arose
concerning different forms of regulatory authorities that have emerged in border
economies where there is active contraband trade in mercenaries, currency, goods,
arms, and diamonds. Poole observed, "In these cases, we must ask: who is
of, and not of, the state? And further, how do these practices at the margins
shape the state itself?"
The role language plays as cultures struggle to articulate
these issues at the margins emerged as another seminar theme. Such terms as the "shadow" cast
by the state, the "nexus" of relationships through which people map
their connections with the state, and the "embodiment" of the state
in narratives concerning police officers and other state agents, help illuminate
how people experience and perceive the state on a daily basis.
