Anthropology of the State

Dozent/in	Smriti Sharma
Veranstaltungsart	Proseminar
Code	HS221350
Semester	Herbstsemester 2022
Durchführender Fachbereich	Ethnologie
Studienstufe	Bachelor
Termin/e	wöchentlich (Mo), ab 19.09.2022, 14:15 - 16:00 Uhr, 3.B01
Umfang	2 Semesterwochenstunden
Turnus	wöchentlich
Inhalt	This course will employ anthropological and ethnographical approaches to study the state. It investigates a range of questions such as: what is the state? how has the state been viewed and studied? how do anthropologists study the state? how is the state conceptualized? How does it become legible through its institutions, practices and artifacts – bureaucracy, files, paper and documents? The course urges us to problematise how the realm of the state manifests itself in everyday life? In doing so, the course familiarises the students with the methodological tools to study the state. In this class, we will think through questions of how the state governs, regulates its citizens and the instruments it makes use of. To do so, we shall adopt a nuanced perspective of how policy in being an instrument of the government also becomes a crucial way of investigating into the nature of the state. Along with reading a set of ethnographical texts, we shall engage with documents/policy briefs to further unfold and examine the everyday functioning of the state. As the course progresses, we shall address questions emerging from the digital turn in governance: the kind of state that existed to the kind of state being envisioned? and what will anthropologists look at in the future study of the state?
Sprache	Englisch
Abschlussform / Credits	Aktive Teilnahme / 4 Credits
Hörer-/innen	Nein
Kontakt	smriti.sharma@unilu.ch