The Social Life of the State: Relational Ethnography and Political Sociology

Abstract

Political sociologists have typically studied the state as a self-enclosed institution hovering above civil society. In this formulation, the state is rendered as omniscient, gazing out over a passive civil society as if it were a naturalized landscape. But in this special issue, we think about how states “see” in relation to whom and what is seen, and how these subjects and collective actors become visible in the first place. We advocate a relational political ethnography that views the state and civil society as inextricably intertwined and mutually co-constitutive. People’s experiences with the state shape their visions of that state, which in turn inform their strategic decisions and everyday engagements. And these decisions and engagements affect how the state views them. To put it differently, in this special issue, we explore the dialectical relationship between how the state “sees” and how it is “seen.” They are inseparable processes. As we argue here, the very unity and coherence of the state apparatus turns not just upon its self-representation but equally upon how people make sense of these representations. How people understand this apparent state in the context of their everyday lives is a crucial source of its power and authority; it explains the reproduction of the state as a social institution. We conclude by introducing the seven empirical contributions to this issue, all of which practice relational political ethnography.