Anthropology in the margins of the state

Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-320) and index.

1. State and its margins : comparative ethnographies / Veena Das and Deborah Poole -- 2. Between threat and guarantee : justice and community in the margins of the Peruvian state / Deborah Poole -- 3. Checkpoint : anthropology, identity, and the state / Pradeep Jeganathan -- 4. Deterritorialized citizenship and the resonances of the Sierra Leonean state / Mariane C. Ferme -- 5. Anthropologist discovers legendary two-faced Indian! : margins, the state, and duplicity in postwar Guatemala / Diane M. Nelson -- 6. AIDS and witchcraft in post-apartheid South Africa / Adam Ashforth -- 7. Operability : surgery at the margin of the state / Lawrence Cohen -- 8. Productivity in the margins : the reconstitution of state power in the Chad Basin / Janet Roitman -- 9. The signature of the state : the paradox of illegibility / Veena Das -- 10. Contesting displacement in Colombia : citizenship and state sovereignty at the margins / Victoria Sanford -- 11. Where are the margins of the state? / Talal Asad.

"Featuring ten of the leading scholars in the field, this exploration of these transformations develops an ethnographic methodology and theoretical apparatus to assess perceptions of power in three regions where state reform and violence have been particularly dramatic: Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. Rather than a geographic border, the term "margin" describes areas far from the centers of state sovereignty in which states are unable to ensure implementation of their programs and policies. Understanding how people perceive and experience the agency of the state: who is of, and not of, the state; and how practices at the margins shape the state itself are central themes." "Drawing on fieldwork in Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Peru, Guatemala, India Chad, Colombia, and South Africa, the contributors examine official documentary practices and their forms and falsifications: the problems that highly mobile mercenaries, currency, goods, arms, and diamonds pose to the suite; emerging non-state regulatory authorities, and the role language plays as cultures struggle to articulate their situation. These case studies provide wide-ranging analyses of the relationships between states and peoples on the edges of state power's effective reign."--BOOK JACKET.