Experiencing the State
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Rudolph, Lloyd I. / Jacobsen, John Kurt, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, USA, This provocative volume on the state departs markedly from a conventional analysis that universalizes and standardizes what the state is, does, and means. The writers mean to engage state and stateness as it is encountered in everyday life, ranging from urban and small town life to hospital treatment, cinema attendance and art exhibitions to big dams, war and torture. These essays locate the state in time space, and circumstances so that it becomes contingent and evocative rather than definitive and authoritative. The co-editors frame the volume with an introduction that presents a non- essentialist narrative of state formation in the west and a conclusion that confronts how the state is being experienced in a post-9/11 world. Twelve essays examine how the state has been experienced in the U.S., Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, South Asia and the Far East. Contributors include James Scott, Arundhati Roy, Bruce Cumings, Paul Brass, Sudipta Kaviraj and Philip Oldenburg.