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Paper short abstract:

Based on an ethnographic study of the everyday practices of state officials this paper challenges the notion of the indolent bureaucrat by reflecting on the consequences of accountability practices made effective in the production and circulation of technologies such as documents and signatures.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on an ethnographic study of the everyday practices of state officials charged with implementing the Indigenous Territorial Development Programme (PDTI) in the archipelago of Chiloé in Southern Chile. Specifically, I focus on how two distinct roles, that of the expert/technician and the state bureaucrat, are folded together in the working lives of those I refer to as 'field-level officials'. I argue that the obligation to account for their practices, and the expectation of their active participation in the production and circulation of bureaucratic technologies such as official documents, transforms members of extension teams in charge of providing technical support to indigenous farmers in rural areas into state bureaucrats.

I argue that official documents, those with the required signatures or stamps, act as socio-material devices with the ability to create, hinder or prevent the relocation of resources, the execution of projects and activities, and the generation of a paper trail that accounts for the work carried out by these officials. By focusing on the relationship between the officials and these bureaucratic technologies I argue against anthropological research mobilising notions of the indolent and indifferent bureaucrat: rather, this paper provides ethnographic evidence of an asymmetry of anxieties tilted towards the officials. I show how officials proactively allocate time and resources to gather, produce, officialise and mobilise documents, having to face obstacles and processes that, in the long run, will allow them to generate the trace of paper - evidence - that legitimises their continuity as state employees.