List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Note on Text
Acronyms

Introduction: The Politics of Relations

Part I: The Local Council

Prelude I: The Ethnographic Position

Chapter 1. Embeddedness: Between Government and Representation

Interlude I: Transformations of Local Self-government

Chapter 2. Boundary Work: Rhythms of Self-government and Infrastructural Gridding
Chapter 3. Of Refugees and Fathers: The Tacit Social Policy of the Mesna Zajednica

Part II: The Centre for Social Work

Prelude II: Social Security and Care

Chapter 4. Modalities of Social Work: Inclusive Distribution vs. Exclusive Protection
Chapter 5. The Strategic Selectivity of Senior Home Care

Conclusion: Contours of a Relational Approach to the State

References
Index

The Politics of Relations

How Self-Government, Infrastructures, and Care Transform the State in Serbia

André Thiemann

302 pages,

ISBN 978-1-80539-551-5 Hb Published (June 2024)

eISBN 978-1-80539-552-2 eBook

Details

“This is a very impressive book. The analysis is developed in sustained, thoughtful and detailed engagement with a very broad range of existing literature. • Stef Jansen, University of Sarajevo

“The book is an excellent contribution to the renewed relational anthropology of the state and to political science, political sociology, public administration and welfare studies.” • Paul Stubbs, University of Zagreb

Rethinking the contributions of the Manchester School of Social Anthropology for political ethnography, the Politics of Relations elaborates its relational approach to the state along four interlaced axes of research – embeddedness, boundary work, modalities and strategic selectivity – that enable thick comparisons across spatio-temporal scales of power.
In Serbia local experiences of self-government, infrastructure and care motivate its citizens to “become the state” while cursing it heartily. While both officials and citizens strive for a state that enables a “normal life,” they navigate the increasingly illiberal politics enacted by national parties and which are tolerated by trans-national donors.

André Thiemann is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Ethnology, Department of Ecological Anthropology at the Czech Academy of Sciences. He is presently Visiting Researcher at the Department of Social Sciences, Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil on the project ‘Materialities of Value: Comparing Grassroots Economics in the Global South and East’.

Series: Volume 49, EASA Series

Subject: Political and Economic Anthropology Sociology

Area: Central/Eastern Europe

LC: JS6933.A2 T55 2024

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; POL019000 POLITICAL SCIENCE/Public Policy/Social Services & Welfare; POL005000 POLITICAL SCIENCE/Political Ideologies/Communism & Socialism

berghahn New York · Oxford

Contents

The Politics of Relations

How Self-Government, Infrastructures, and Care Transform the State in Serbia

André Thiemann

Series: Volume 49, EASA Series

Subject: Political and Economic Anthropology Sociology

Area: Central/Eastern Europe

Home -> Title

Contents

The Politics of Relations

How Self-Government, Infrastructures, and Care Transform the State in Serbia

André Thiemann

Series: Volume 49, EASA Series

Subject: Political and Economic Anthropology Sociology

Area: Central/Eastern Europe