What is the State? An anthropological inquiry

The question of what is the ‘State’ and how it operates has always been central to social sciences as much as the state itself has been central to living in modern societies. Social scientists, activists and radicals have for decades disagreed widely on the nature, role, and even existence of this thing called the state. And, as the world entered the era of globalization and neoliberal capitalism in the late 20th century, these questions came back to front.

Anthropology, a field once most preoccupied with the study of supposed ‘pre-modern, traditional’ societies, brings in a new perspective to studying the state. Through the lenses of ethnography and social theory – particularly the Marxist and Foucauldian traditions – the anthropology of the state explores state activities as a manifestation of global and local power relations by looking through the everyday encounters citizens have with the ‘state,’ and the conflicting imaginaries of the state that they develop based on them.

The goal of this course is to learn the different perspective anthropology of the state brings to understanding the state, examine different case studies into different aspects of state activity, and reflect on how we encounter the state in our daily lives.