Paper short abstract:

This paper starts from my work with state actors to revisit the politics of anthropology. Anthropology has long been invested in examining how the state affects and subjects. How do we reimagine an anthropological politics from within public institutional landscapes with (semi-)state actors?

Paper long abstract:

This paper starts from my work with state institutions and actors to revisit the politics of anthropology. Anthropologists have often positioned themselves alongside subaltern subjects against the rich and powerful. Especially “the state” figures as a powerful, violent entity, which is critically studied through the experiences of its subjects. While providing a powerful vantage point for critique, such a positioning does little justice to the great variety of state institutions, with varied investments and effects, that work to deliver public goods. Instead, my colleagues and I study the Dutch welfare state as a dense institutional landscape with varying logics and ethical investments. We do so working closely with policy actors who struggle to create more collaborative, trusting and democratic state-citizen relations.

This is a promising form of public anthropology that engages issues of governance in dialogue with governmental actors. It, however, raises poignant political questions. Anthropology has long been invested in a critique of the state “from without”, examining how it affects and subjects. What kind of politics do we develop when we, instead, immerse ourselves in public institutional landscapes and when (semi-)state actors become our primary interlocutors and their ethical investments, moral logics and dilemmas become central to our research? In this paper, I reflect on the anthropological politics of such work, and ask what happens to anthropology’s criticality when we work from within systems of power instead of from without.