Santana Khanikar
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780199485550
- eISBN:
- 9780199092031
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199485550.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Indian Politics
How is it that nation-states running on democratic procedures like elections engage simultaneously in extreme forms of violence towards its own citizens? While introducing this question in this ...
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How is it that nation-states running on democratic procedures like elections engage simultaneously in extreme forms of violence towards its own citizens? While introducing this question in this chapter, I discuss the institutional, conceptual, and temporal-spatial aspects of the modern state and how it can be studied ethnographically. As a study of the violent dimension of the state, questions of legality, routinesness and the targets of violence are also addressed. The chapter also outlines how the notion of legitimacy is conceived in the work, by examining various competing theorizations, and also by showing how a distinction between the terms hegemony and legitimacy are sustained in the work. At the end, the chapter gives an outline of the rest of the book and how various chapters engage with the issue of state violence in two field-contexts.Less
How is it that nation-states running on democratic procedures like elections engage simultaneously in extreme forms of violence towards its own citizens? While introducing this question in this chapter, I discuss the institutional, conceptual, and temporal-spatial aspects of the modern state and how it can be studied ethnographically. As a study of the violent dimension of the state, questions of legality, routinesness and the targets of violence are also addressed. The chapter also outlines how the notion of legitimacy is conceived in the work, by examining various competing theorizations, and also by showing how a distinction between the terms hegemony and legitimacy are sustained in the work. At the end, the chapter gives an outline of the rest of the book and how various chapters engage with the issue of state violence in two field-contexts.
