Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, Migrants, and States in the Postcolonial World [NOOK Book]

( 1 )

Overview

9/11 and its aftermath have shown that our ideas about what constitutes sovereign power lag dangerously behind the burgeoning claims to rights and recognition within and across national boundaries. New configurations of sovereignty are at the heart of political and cultural transformations globally. Sovereign Bodies shifts the debate on sovereign power away from territoriality and external recognition of state power, toward the shaping of sovereign power through the exercise of violence over human bodies and ...

See more details below
Sovereign Bodies: Citizens, Migrants, and States in the Postcolonial World

Available on NOOK devices and apps  
  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK HD/HD+ Tablet
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for Windows 8 Tablet
  • NOOK for iOS
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK for Windows 8
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for Web

Want a NOOK? Explore Now

NOOK Book (eBook)
$17.57
BN.com price
(Save 45%)$31.95 List Price

More About This Book

Overview

9/11 and its aftermath have shown that our ideas about what constitutes sovereign power lag dangerously behind the burgeoning claims to rights and recognition within and across national boundaries. New configurations of sovereignty are at the heart of political and cultural transformations globally. Sovereign Bodies shifts the debate on sovereign power away from territoriality and external recognition of state power, toward the shaping of sovereign power through the exercise of violence over human bodies and populations. In this volume, sovereign power, whether exercised by a nation-state or by a local despotic power or community, is understood and scrutinized as something tentative and unstable whose efficacy depends less on formal rules than on repeated acts of violence.

Following the editors' introduction are fourteen essays by leading scholars from around the globe that analyze cultural meanings of sovereign power and violence, as well as practices of citizenship and belonging--in South Africa, Peru, India, Mexico, Cyprus, Norway, and also among transnational Chinese and Indian populations. Sovereign Bodies enriches our understanding of power and sovereignty in the postcolonial world and in "the West" while opening new conceptual fields in the anthropology of politics. The contributors are Ana María Alonso, Lars Buur, Partha Chatterjee, Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, Oivind Fuglerud, Thomas Blom Hansen, Barry Hindess, Steffen Jensen, Achille Mbembe, Aihwa Ong, Finn Stepputat, Simon Turner, Peter van der Veer, and Yael Navaro-Yashin.

Read More Show Less

What People Are Saying

Eric Worby
This invigorating and intellectually stimulating book promises to reinvent the very questions we ask about the practice, object, and experience of the political in the postnational age that is coming ever more sharply into view. The authors provide a serviceable and relevant theoretical horizon not only for a moribund political anthropology but for a sclerotic political science as well. By placing the problem of sovereignty at the heart of political projects of all kinds, and by focusing on violence as the principal means by which such projects are contingently realized, they have provided scholars of the postcolonial world with a new set of conceptual tools to think about power beyond the state.
— Eric Worby, Yale University
Dipesh Chakrabarty
This exciting book brings together essays that represent some of the new turns in recent political thought in and about the formerly colonized regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Moreover, throughout the volume these essays are in conversation with case studies from the West and with Western political philosophy. Sovereign Bodies is a significant and timely contribution to ongoing attempts at producing political ethnographies and theories of globalization.
— Dipesh Chakrabarty, University of Chicago, author of "Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference"
Read More Show Less
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781400826698
  • Publisher: Princeton University Press
  • Publication date: 1/13/2009
  • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
  • Format: eBook
  • Pages: 360
  • File size: 2 MB

Meet the Author

Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat previously coedited "States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State". Hansen is Professor of Anthropology at Yale University. His recent books include "Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay" and "The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India" (both Princeton). Stepputat is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.
Read More Show Less

Table of Contents

Preface vii
List of Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Thomas Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat
RACE, LAW, AND CITIZENSHIP
Territorializing the Nation and ''Integrating the Indian'': ''Mestizaje'' in Mexican Official Discourses and Public Culture by Ana María Alonso 39
Violence, Sovereignty, and Citizenship in Postcolonial Peru by Finn Stepputat 61
Sovereign Violence and the Domain of the Political by Partha Chatterjee 82
DEATH, ANXIETY, AND RITUALS OF STATE
Confinement and the Imagination: Sovereignty and Subjectivity in a Quasi-State Yael Navaro-Yashin 103
Naturing the Nation: Aliens, Apocalypse, and the Postcolonial State by Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff 120
Sovereignty as a Form of Expenditure by Achille Mbembe 148
BODY, LOCALITY, AND INFORMAL SOVEREIGNTY
Sovereigns beyond the State: On Legality and Authority in Urban India by Thomas Blom Hansen 169
The Sovereign Outsourced: Local Justice and Violence in Port Elizabeth by Lars Buur 192
Above the Law: Practices of Sovereignty in Surrey Estate, Cape Town by Steffen Jensen 218
POSTCOLONIAL CITIZENSHIP IN THE EMPIRE
Citizenship and Empire by Barry Hindess 241
Splintering Cosmopolitanism: Asian Immigrants and Zones of Autonomy in the American West by Aihwa Ong 257
Virtual India: Indian IT Labor and the Nation-State by Peter van der Veer 276
Inside Out: The Reorganization of National Identity in Norway ivind Fuglerud 291
Suspended Spaces--Contesting Sovereignties in a Refugee Camp by Simon Turner 312
Bibliography 333
Index 363
Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 5
( 1 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(1)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Review Guidelines
Add Recommendations
Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously
Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 19, 2012

    Can i b pb

    Well can i

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
Sort by: Showing 1 Customer Review
If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)