Shifting States, New Perspectives on Security, Infrastructure, and Political Affect

Abstract

Shifting States draws on a rich history of anthropological theorising on all kinds of states – from the pre- to the post-industrial – and explores topics as diverse as bureaucracy, infrastructure, surveillance, securitization, and public health. As we enter the third decade of the twentieth century, there is a growing sense that ‘the state’ is in crisis everywhere. Although the nature of this perceived crisis varies from place to place, it is seen to have been caused by some combination of the inter-related forces of ‘globalisation’, of successive economic shocks, and of the rise of social media-fuelled populist movements. Yet, conversely, there is also a creeping perception that state power..