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This provocative volume on the state departs markedly from a conventional analysis that universalizes and standardizes what the state is, does, and means. The authors engage state and stateness as it is encountered in everyday life, ranging from urban and village life to big dams, war, torture, hospital treatment, cinema attendance, and art exhibitions. The essays locate the state in time, space, and circumstances so that its meaning becomes contingent and evocative rather than definitive and authoritative. The volume discusses formative discourses on the state, what we may think, feel or say about the state, and what images we may evoke by its various manifestations. The co-editors introduce the volume by presenting a non-essentialist narrative of state formation and conclude it with an account of how the state has been experienced in the post-9/11 world. The twelve essays examine how the state is being experienced in South Asia, the US, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Far East. Contributors include James Scott, Arundhati Roy, Bruce Cumings, Paul Brass, Sudipta Kaviraj, and Philip Oldenberg.
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