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Beyond “the State” and Failed Schemes
Author(s) -
LI TANIA MURRAY
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.2005.107.3.383
Subject(s) - cognitive reframing , authoritarianism , state (computer science) , situated , power (physics) , sociology , epistemology , rationality , welfare state , law and economics , political economy , environmental ethics , political science , law , politics , democracy , computer science , social psychology , philosophy , psychology , physics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence
In this article, I propose five ways to move beyond the analytical scheme of James Scott's Seeing Like a State (1998). I question the spatial optic that posits an “up there,” all‐seeing state operating as a preformed repository of power, spread progressively outward to “nonstate” spaces beyond its reach. I highlight the role of parties beyond “the state” that attempt to govern—social reformers, scientists, and the so‐called nongovernmental agencies, among others. I look beyond authoritarian high modernism to the more general problematic of “improvement” emerging from a governmental rationality focused on the welfare of populations. I explore the recourse to mētis (contextualized, local knowledge and practice) situated beyond the purview of planning. Finally, I reframe the question posed by Scott—why have certain schemes designed to improve the human condition failed?—to examine the question posed so provocatively by James Ferguson: What do these schemes do? What are their messy, contradictory, conjunctural effects?