Paper short abstract:

Political anthropology often conceptualises the position of marginalised urban residents vis-à-vis the state as non-standard or non-fully-fledged citizenship. This paper, instead, goes beyond citizenship and approaches the interactions between residents and the state as a politics of the periphery.

Paper long abstract:

The ways in which residents of urban peripheries position themselves in relation to the state is often conceptualised as non-standard or non-fully-fledged citizenship, for example as incomplete, half, pseudo, informal, uncertain, vulnerable, insurgent, transgressive, or contentious citizenship. While these residents are marginalised by the state, theorisations of their politics still centre upon the state and its social contract. However, for many marginalised urban residents, the political language of citizenship does not offer a solution to their daily predicament. Moreover, the notion of citizenship does not resonate with their experiences and understandings of their relationship with the state. In doing so, existing theories risk contributing to epistemic injustice as they conceptualise resident-state relations as deviating from or even ‘less than’ the state and its citizenship regime. Instead, I set out to reconceptualise periphery-state interactions from the vantage point of the periphery. I approach the variety of practices inherent in the interactions between marginalised residents and the state as a politics of the periphery, a diverse politics in its own right and on its own terms that emerges from local modes of agency. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in low-income neighbourhoods in Recife, Brazil, I use emic political and moral notions to understand residents' relationship to the state beyond citizenship. Finally, I consider the impact this may have on political anthropology's focus on citizenship.