
Series
Volume 49
EASA Series
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The Politics of Relations
How Self-Government, Infrastructures, and Care Transform the State in Serbia
André Thiemann
302 pages,
ISBN 978-1-80539-551-5 $135.00/£99.00 / Hb / Not Yet Published (June 2024)
eISBN 978-1-80539-552-2 eBook Not Yet Published
Reviews
“This is a very impressive book. The analysis is developed in sustained, thoughtful and detailed engagement with a very broad range of existing literature. • Stef Jansen, University of Sarajevo
Description
Rethinking the contributions of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology for political ethnography, the Politics of Relations elaborates its relational approach to the state along four interlaced axes of research – embeddedness, boundary work, modalities and strategic selectivity – that enable thick comparisons across spatio-temporal scales of power.
In Serbia local experiences of self-government, infrastructure and care motivate its citizens to “become the state” while cursing it heartily. While both officials and citizens strive for a state that enables a “normal life,” they navigate the increasingly illiberal politics enacted by national parties and tolerated by trans-national donors.
André Thiemann is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Ecological Anthropology, Czech Academy of Sciences. He was Visiting Lead Researcher at Riga Stradiņš University, leading the project Comparing Vital Capitals: An Anthropological Analysis of the Global Value Chains of Sea Buckthorn and Raspberries.