This course examines the institutions,
spaces, ideas, practices, and representations that
constitute and question the nation-state. It
draws on perspectives on the state developed
within other disciplines. Simultaneously, a distinctively
anthropological understanding of the state is
articulated by focusing on systems of meaning
and belief; personhood and agency; everyday
practices; and persistent structures and emergent forms.
The course also examines how institutions which are
considered to define the modern state, such as
citizenship, sovereignty, territoriality, secularism, and
violence, are manifested in and represented by
ethnographic research and writing.
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