Affect in the civil service: a study of a modern state-system

Navaro-Yashin, Yael

doi:10.1080/13688790600824997

Cited by 24 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…We pay close attention to the working methods and ethos of actors (social movement activists, NGOs, civil servants, diplomats, delegates, technocrats, experts, legal practitioners) enmeshed in the everyday bureaucratic practices set in motion by these complex mechanisms. Drawing inspiration from the anthropological literature on the affective life of the state which emphasises the multiple and contingent emotions officials maintain toward the administrations they are supposed to represent (Navaro‐Yashin , , ; Laszczkowski and Reeves ; Aretxaga ), we examine how actors both reproduce and subvert efforts of rationalisation in their everyday bureaucratic routines. By exploring the affective life of bureaucracies, we seek to understand how actors maintain a sense of purpose and agency in spite of the tedious and burdensome nature of the administrative procedures in which they take part.…”

Section: Affective Bureaucraciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The bureaucratisation of utopia: ethics, affects and subjectivities in international governance processes

Billaud

Cowan

2020

Soc Anthropol

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Bureaucracies, whether national or international, have rarely been conceived as ‘utopian’ sites. On the contrary, classic representations tend to describe bureaucratic formations as ‘rationality machines’, administrations as homogeneous black boxes and bureaucrats as individuals working ‘without hatred or passion’ to implement a broader vision of which they remain largely ignorant. The idea for this special issue emerged out of a feeling of unease with such renderings which, although providing important elements of understanding about the nature of bureaucratic power and its effects, do not fully reflect the insights we gained through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research in international bureaucracies. This collection continues a conversation initiated by Laura Bear and Nayanika Mathur who urge us to examine bureaucracies ‘as an expression of a contract between citizens and officials that aim to generate a utopian order’ (2015: 18). We argue that a focus on actors working in international organisations allows the exploration of distinctive bureaucratic subjectivities forged in these settings. By exploring the affective life of international bureaucracies, we seek to understand how actors maintain a sense of agency in spite of the tedious and burdensome nature of the administrative procedures in which they take part.

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Section: Affective Bureaucraciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The bureaucratisation of utopia: ethics, affects and subjectivities in international governance processes

Billaud

Cowan

2020

Soc Anthropol

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“…The intensity of Emma's tears as she filled out her application reveals that bureaucratic processes have deeply felt consequences that need consideration. As a first principle, bureaucracies are “emotive domains,” wherein documents are “capable of carrying, containing, or inciting affective energies when & put to use in specific webs of social relation” (Navaro‐Yashin , 282; , 81; see also Herzfeld ). Bureaucratic processes and documents also elicit emotional responses related to civic inclusion because those in power determine rights claims and membership by defining, accounting for, and legitimizing modes of personhood (Coutin ; Leshkowich ; Reeves ).…”

Section: Documenting Membership: Bureaucracies Of Belongingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forms of exclusion: Undocumented students navigating financial aid and inclusion in the United States

Flores

2016

American Ethnologist

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Excluded from public financial aid because of their immigration status, undocumented youth in the United States frequently depend on private schools’ merit‐based financial aid. This aid, which operates according to a neoliberal logic, provides them with a critical pathway to tertiary education and potentially to institutional and national inclusion. Yet this private‐sector inclusion ultimately harms their sense of public belonging, as shown by the experiences of undocumented Latino youth in Nashville, Tennessee. Students who do not meet the schools’ high standards cannot access either institutional or civic inclusion; those who can meet the standards experience inclusion as contingent on continued excellence. Their experiences reveal the critical role that private institutions play in mediating undocumented people's national inclusion and how neoliberal merit restricts the terms of this inclusion. [undocumented migrants, inclusion, exclusion, higher education, neoliberalism, bureaucratic documents, United States]

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“…Navaro‐Yashin makes it clear that she is referring specifically to western European statecraft, or, alternatively, to “the Euro‐American paradigm” (2007:84). Other important work on state documentary practices includes Clanchy 1979; Goody 1986; Messick 1993; and Navaro‐Yashin 2002, 2006.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

States, secrecy, subversives: APRA and political fantasy in mid‐20th‐century Peru

Nugent

2010

American Ethnologist

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During the regime of Manuel Odría (1948–56), state officials in the northern Peruvian Andes came to believe that their efforts to govern were being systematically thwarted by APRA, an outlawed political party forced underground by government repression. Officials concluded that the party had elaborated a subterranean political apparatus of remarkable scope and power, one that was largely invisible to the naked eye. I draw on officials’ fears of a dark and dangerous counterstate to cross‐examine the literature on state formation. State theory has been predicated on the inevitability of state power, which makes it difficult to account for state crisis and also to grasp the highly contingent nature of successful efforts to rule. Much can be learned about state formation by examining moments in which political rule falters or fails, for it is then that the lineaments of power and control that otherwise remain masked become visible.

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Affect in the civil service: a study of a modern state-system

Cited by 24 publications

References 0 publications

The bureaucratisation of utopia: ethics, affects and subjectivities in international governance processes

The bureaucratisation of utopia: ethics, affects and subjectivities in international governance processes

Forms of exclusion: Undocumented students navigating financial aid and inclusion in the United States

States, secrecy, subversives: APRA and political fantasy in mid‐20th‐century Peru

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