Gregory Feldman
Biographic Data
| ID | 3621633 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gregory Feldman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Gregory |
| FAMILY NAME | Feldman |
| SIGNATURE | FELDMAN G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Windsor |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6145-125X |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 319 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power
There are few areas of society today that remain outside the ambit of policy processes, and likewise policy making has progressively reached into the structure and fabric of everyday life. An instrument of modern government, policy and its processes provide an analytical window into systems of governance themselves, opening up ways to study power and the construction of regimes of truth. This volume argues that policies are not simply coercive, c…
The Gray Zone: Sovereignty, Human Smuggling, and Undercover Police Investigation in Europe
Based on rare, in-depth fieldwork among an undercover police investigative team working in a southern EU maritime state, Gregory Feldman examines how "taking action" against human smuggling rings requires the team to enter the "gray zone", a space where legal and policy prescriptions do not hold. Feldman asks how this seven-member team makes ethical judgments when they secretly investigate smugglers, traffickers, migrants, lawyers, shopkeepers, a…
The Virtues of Theory: How Some Academics Succeeded - Big Time - in Reaching Non-Academic Audiences
This is a short essay stimulated by Why Anthropologists Don’t Reach the Public: A Rumination on Books of Thomas Hylland Eriksen, by Gordon Mathews (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2018.1502074)
With my head on the pillow: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Evil among Undercover Police Investigators
Based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork among an undercover police investigative team in a southern European Union member state, I argue that moments arise when this team acts “ethically” in spite of the legal and policy mandates surrounding their work. I understand ethical action to include action that people undertake because they refuse to bear any responsibility (active or passive) for events that they deem to be “evil,” lest such events be…
We Are All Migrants: Political Action and the Ubiquitous Condition of Migrant-hood
Now more than ever, questions of citizenship, migration, and political action dominate public debate. In this powerful and polemical book, Gregory Feldman argues that We Are All Migrants . By challenging the division between those considered "citizens" and "migrants," Feldman shows that both subjects confront disempowerment, uncertainty, and atomization inseparable from the rise of mass society, the isolation of the laboring individual, and the g…
Understanding others: Agency and articulation in a historical perspective
The specific intellectual's pivotal position: Action, compassion and thinking in administrative society, an Arendtian view
Political action is frequently conceptualised as starting from the ground up. Plausible as this point may be, it pays insufficient attention to well‐established arguments that we inhabit administrative society, implicitly contrasted against political society, with technocrats operating the requisite power/knowledge grid away from the street. Like Foucault's ‘specific intellectuals’, technocrats work in pivotal positions in apparatuses of populati…
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The Migration Apparatus: Security, Labor, and Policymaking in the European Union
The Migration Apparatus examines the daily practices of European Union migration policy officials as they attempt to harmonize legal channels for labor migrants while simultaneously cracking down on illegal migration
If ethnography is more than participant-observation, then relations are more than connections: The case for nonlocal ethnography in a world of apparatuses
Efforts to theorize globalization remain limited by an ethnographic data set obtained primarily through direct sensory experience. This article argues that such empiricism persists because the difference between connections and relations as methodological constructs remains blurred. Their conflation precludes a fuller view of how apparatuses organize global processes. Apparatuses decompose direct social connections and replace them with shifting …
Many Nice People’: The nation‐state, post‐Fordism, and the policy norm of flexible ethnic relations in Estonia
This article uses historical research and ethnographic fieldwork to ask how policymakers interpret historical, political, and economic factors to construct inter‐ethnic communities that would bring security and economic growth to an enlarged European Union (EU). Focusing on post‐Soviet Estonia's ethnic integration policy, the article argues that ‘flexibility’ applies not only to post‐Fordist, individualized subjects, but also to relations between…
The Trap of Abstract Space: Recomposing Russian-Speaking Immigrants in Post-Soviet Estonia
Focusing on the Estonian government's policy to integrate Soviet-era Russian-speaking immigrants, this article historically examines how public officials have come to constitute Estonian state space as a particular national place through the re-constitution of these immigrants in public policy. Drawing on Lefebvre's The Production of Space , the analysis describes place as a combined result of three types of space mobilized in social practice: sp…
Essential Crises: A Performative Approach to Migrants, Minorities, and the European Nation-state
Chaos, "the other of order," is pure negativity. It is the denial of all that the order strives to be. It is against that negativity that the positivity of order constitutes itself. But the negativity of chaos is a product of order's self-constitution: its side-effect, its waste, and yet the condition sine qua non of its (reflective) possibility. Without the negativity of chaos, there is no positivity of order; without chaos, no order. —Zygmunt B…
Culture, state, and security in Europe: The case of citizenship and integration policy in Estonia
In this article, I examine how a territorial imaginary conflating culture, territory, nation, and security allows “elites of statecraft” in Europe to frame citizenship and integration policy as (inter)national security matters. Focusing on post‐Soviet Estonia, I argue that this imaginary legitimized the denial of citizenship to Soviet‐era Russian speakers and enabled the government's integration policy objective of creating the “Estonian cultural…
Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy
As the rational choice model of "policy" proliferates in "policy studies, " the social sciences, modern governments, organizations, and everyday life, a number of anthropologists are beginning to develop a body of work in the anthropology of public policy that critiques the assumptions of "policy" as a legal-rational way of getting things done. While de-masking the framing of public policy questions, an anthropological approach attempts to uncove…
Estranged states: Diplomacy and the containment of national minorities in Europe
This article offers an anthropological perspective on international relations by studying 'macro-structures' as the effects of elite-conducted contingent practices. It draws on Der Derian's genealogical explanation of diplomacy as a second-order mediation among 'estranged states'. This view sets up the argument that national minorities are constructed as international security concerns within diplomatic discourse because they obstruct nation-stat…
Why an anthropology of public policy
We have co‐founded the Interest Group for the Anthropology of Public Policy (IGAPP), which is affiliated with the American Anthropological Association, to provide an institutional framework to identify and foster the work of anthropologists studying policy. IGAPP's initial projects include compiling existing anthropological studies of policy discourses, processes and impacts, and developing curricula and syllabuses. We welcome the input of reader…
The European-ness of Estonia's Ethnic Integration Policy: Nation, culture, and security in an applicant state
This article argues that the process of European Union accession prioritises the linguistic and cultural hegemony of the ethnic Estonian majority as a necessary condition of securing post-Soviet Estonia in an enlarged European Union. This occurs through a conceptualisation of security used by 'e ́lites of statecraft' that binds together 'nation', 'culture', and 'state' as cornerstones of a stable interstate system. Evidence is gathered from exten…
It is Probably too Complicated for Them: Anthropologists, the State and National Security
Breaking our silence on Nato
Shifting the perspective on identity discourse in Estonia
I argue that the post-socialist identity discourse in Estonia should be studied as a result of the dialectic relationship between the international context in which Estonia exists and the perceptions of history and culture that elites deploy in the public discourse of Estonia's identity. Four major narratives that compose much of the identity discourse emerge from this dialectic: Estonia as a reconstituted state and society; Estonia as European; …
Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy
As the rational choice model of "policy" proliferates in "policy studies, " the social sciences, modern governments, organizations, and everyday life, a number of anthropologists are beginning to develop a body of work in the anthropology of public policy that critiques the assumptions of "policy" as a legal-rational way of getting things done. While de-masking the framing of public policy questions, an anthropological approach attempts to uncove…
If ethnography is more than participant-observation, then relations are more than connections: The case for nonlocal ethnography in a world of apparatuses
Efforts to theorize globalization remain limited by an ethnographic data set obtained primarily through direct sensory experience. This article argues that such empiricism persists because the difference between connections and relations as methodological constructs remains blurred. Their conflation precludes a fuller view of how apparatuses organize global processes. Apparatuses decompose direct social connections and replace them with shifting …
The Migration Apparatus: Security, Labor, and Policymaking in the European Union
The Migration Apparatus examines the daily practices of European Union migration policy officials as they attempt to harmonize legal channels for labor migrants while simultaneously cracking down on illegal migration
Culture, state, and security in Europe: The case of citizenship and integration policy in Estonia
In this article, I examine how a territorial imaginary conflating culture, territory, nation, and security allows “elites of statecraft” in Europe to frame citizenship and integration policy as (inter)national security matters. Focusing on post‐Soviet Estonia, I argue that this imaginary legitimized the denial of citizenship to Soviet‐era Russian speakers and enabled the government's integration policy objective of creating the “Estonian cultural…
Estranged states: Diplomacy and the containment of national minorities in Europe
This article offers an anthropological perspective on international relations by studying 'macro-structures' as the effects of elite-conducted contingent practices. It draws on Der Derian's genealogical explanation of diplomacy as a second-order mediation among 'estranged states'. This view sets up the argument that national minorities are constructed as international security concerns within diplomatic discourse because they obstruct nation-stat…
Why an anthropology of public policy
We have co‐founded the Interest Group for the Anthropology of Public Policy (IGAPP), which is affiliated with the American Anthropological Association, to provide an institutional framework to identify and foster the work of anthropologists studying policy. IGAPP's initial projects include compiling existing anthropological studies of policy discourses, processes and impacts, and developing curricula and syllabuses. We welcome the input of reader…
Essential Crises: A Performative Approach to Migrants, Minorities, and the European Nation-state
Chaos, "the other of order," is pure negativity. It is the denial of all that the order strives to be. It is against that negativity that the positivity of order constitutes itself. But the negativity of chaos is a product of order's self-constitution: its side-effect, its waste, and yet the condition sine qua non of its (reflective) possibility. Without the negativity of chaos, there is no positivity of order; without chaos, no order. —Zygmunt B…
With my head on the pillow: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Evil among Undercover Police Investigators
Based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork among an undercover police investigative team in a southern European Union member state, I argue that moments arise when this team acts “ethically” in spite of the legal and policy mandates surrounding their work. I understand ethical action to include action that people undertake because they refuse to bear any responsibility (active or passive) for events that they deem to be “evil,” lest such events be…
Shifting the perspective on identity discourse in Estonia
I argue that the post-socialist identity discourse in Estonia should be studied as a result of the dialectic relationship between the international context in which Estonia exists and the perceptions of history and culture that elites deploy in the public discourse of Estonia's identity. Four major narratives that compose much of the identity discourse emerge from this dialectic: Estonia as a reconstituted state and society; Estonia as European; …
Many Nice People’: The nation‐state, post‐Fordism, and the policy norm of flexible ethnic relations in Estonia
This article uses historical research and ethnographic fieldwork to ask how policymakers interpret historical, political, and economic factors to construct inter‐ethnic communities that would bring security and economic growth to an enlarged European Union (EU). Focusing on post‐Soviet Estonia's ethnic integration policy, the article argues that ‘flexibility’ applies not only to post‐Fordist, individualized subjects, but also to relations between…
Breaking our silence on Nato
The Trap of Abstract Space: Recomposing Russian-Speaking Immigrants in Post-Soviet Estonia
Focusing on the Estonian government's policy to integrate Soviet-era Russian-speaking immigrants, this article historically examines how public officials have come to constitute Estonian state space as a particular national place through the re-constitution of these immigrants in public policy. Drawing on Lefebvre's The Production of Space , the analysis describes place as a combined result of three types of space mobilized in social practice: sp…
The European-ness of Estonia's Ethnic Integration Policy: Nation, culture, and security in an applicant state
This article argues that the process of European Union accession prioritises the linguistic and cultural hegemony of the ethnic Estonian majority as a necessary condition of securing post-Soviet Estonia in an enlarged European Union. This occurs through a conceptualisation of security used by 'e ́lites of statecraft' that binds together 'nation', 'culture', and 'state' as cornerstones of a stable interstate system. Evidence is gathered from exten…
Shifting the perspective on identity discourse in Estonia
I argue that the post-socialist identity discourse in Estonia should be studied as a result of the dialectic relationship between the international context in which Estonia exists and the perceptions of history and culture that elites deploy in the public discourse of Estonia's identity. Four major narratives that compose much of the identity discourse emerge from this dialectic: Estonia as a reconstituted state and society; Estonia as European; …
The European-ness of Estonia's Ethnic Integration Policy: Nation, culture, and security in an applicant state
This article argues that the process of European Union accession prioritises the linguistic and cultural hegemony of the ethnic Estonian majority as a necessary condition of securing post-Soviet Estonia in an enlarged European Union. This occurs through a conceptualisation of security used by 'e ́lites of statecraft' that binds together 'nation', 'culture', and 'state' as cornerstones of a stable interstate system. Evidence is gathered from exten…
It is Probably too Complicated for Them: Anthropologists, the State and National Security
Breaking our silence on Nato
Essential Crises: A Performative Approach to Migrants, Minorities, and the European Nation-state
Chaos, "the other of order," is pure negativity. It is the denial of all that the order strives to be. It is against that negativity that the positivity of order constitutes itself. But the negativity of chaos is a product of order's self-constitution: its side-effect, its waste, and yet the condition sine qua non of its (reflective) possibility. Without the negativity of chaos, there is no positivity of order; without chaos, no order. —Zygmunt B…
Culture, state, and security in Europe: The case of citizenship and integration policy in Estonia
In this article, I examine how a territorial imaginary conflating culture, territory, nation, and security allows “elites of statecraft” in Europe to frame citizenship and integration policy as (inter)national security matters. Focusing on post‐Soviet Estonia, I argue that this imaginary legitimized the denial of citizenship to Soviet‐era Russian speakers and enabled the government's integration policy objective of creating the “Estonian cultural…
Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy
As the rational choice model of "policy" proliferates in "policy studies, " the social sciences, modern governments, organizations, and everyday life, a number of anthropologists are beginning to develop a body of work in the anthropology of public policy that critiques the assumptions of "policy" as a legal-rational way of getting things done. While de-masking the framing of public policy questions, an anthropological approach attempts to uncove…
Estranged states: Diplomacy and the containment of national minorities in Europe
This article offers an anthropological perspective on international relations by studying 'macro-structures' as the effects of elite-conducted contingent practices. It draws on Der Derian's genealogical explanation of diplomacy as a second-order mediation among 'estranged states'. This view sets up the argument that national minorities are constructed as international security concerns within diplomatic discourse because they obstruct nation-stat…
Why an anthropology of public policy
We have co‐founded the Interest Group for the Anthropology of Public Policy (IGAPP), which is affiliated with the American Anthropological Association, to provide an institutional framework to identify and foster the work of anthropologists studying policy. IGAPP's initial projects include compiling existing anthropological studies of policy discourses, processes and impacts, and developing curricula and syllabuses. We welcome the input of reader…
The Trap of Abstract Space: Recomposing Russian-Speaking Immigrants in Post-Soviet Estonia
Focusing on the Estonian government's policy to integrate Soviet-era Russian-speaking immigrants, this article historically examines how public officials have come to constitute Estonian state space as a particular national place through the re-constitution of these immigrants in public policy. Drawing on Lefebvre's The Production of Space , the analysis describes place as a combined result of three types of space mobilized in social practice: sp…
Many Nice People’: The nation‐state, post‐Fordism, and the policy norm of flexible ethnic relations in Estonia
This article uses historical research and ethnographic fieldwork to ask how policymakers interpret historical, political, and economic factors to construct inter‐ethnic communities that would bring security and economic growth to an enlarged European Union (EU). Focusing on post‐Soviet Estonia's ethnic integration policy, the article argues that ‘flexibility’ applies not only to post‐Fordist, individualized subjects, but also to relations between…
The Migration Apparatus: Security, Labor, and Policymaking in the European Union
The Migration Apparatus examines the daily practices of European Union migration policy officials as they attempt to harmonize legal channels for labor migrants while simultaneously cracking down on illegal migration
If ethnography is more than participant-observation, then relations are more than connections: The case for nonlocal ethnography in a world of apparatuses
Efforts to theorize globalization remain limited by an ethnographic data set obtained primarily through direct sensory experience. This article argues that such empiricism persists because the difference between connections and relations as methodological constructs remains blurred. Their conflation precludes a fuller view of how apparatuses organize global processes. Apparatuses decompose direct social connections and replace them with shifting …
The specific intellectual's pivotal position: Action, compassion and thinking in administrative society, an Arendtian view
Political action is frequently conceptualised as starting from the ground up. Plausible as this point may be, it pays insufficient attention to well‐established arguments that we inhabit administrative society, implicitly contrasted against political society, with technocrats operating the requisite power/knowledge grid away from the street. Like Foucault's ‘specific intellectuals’, technocrats work in pivotal positions in apparatuses of populati…
Reply to commentaries: Reply to commentaries
Understanding others: Agency and articulation in a historical perspective
We Are All Migrants: Political Action and the Ubiquitous Condition of Migrant-hood
Now more than ever, questions of citizenship, migration, and political action dominate public debate. In this powerful and polemical book, Gregory Feldman argues that We Are All Migrants . By challenging the division between those considered "citizens" and "migrants," Feldman shows that both subjects confront disempowerment, uncertainty, and atomization inseparable from the rise of mass society, the isolation of the laboring individual, and the g…
With my head on the pillow: Sovereignty, Ethics, and Evil among Undercover Police Investigators
Based on intensive ethnographic fieldwork among an undercover police investigative team in a southern European Union member state, I argue that moments arise when this team acts “ethically” in spite of the legal and policy mandates surrounding their work. I understand ethical action to include action that people undertake because they refuse to bear any responsibility (active or passive) for events that they deem to be “evil,” lest such events be…
The Virtues of Theory: How Some Academics Succeeded - Big Time - in Reaching Non-Academic Audiences
This is a short essay stimulated by Why Anthropologists Don’t Reach the Public: A Rumination on Books of Thomas Hylland Eriksen, by Gordon Mathews (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00664677.2018.1502074)
The Gray Zone: Sovereignty, Human Smuggling, and Undercover Police Investigation in Europe
Based on rare, in-depth fieldwork among an undercover police investigative team working in a southern EU maritime state, Gregory Feldman examines how "taking action" against human smuggling rings requires the team to enter the "gray zone", a space where legal and policy prescriptions do not hold. Feldman asks how this seven-member team makes ethical judgments when they secretly investigate smugglers, traffickers, migrants, lawyers, shopkeepers, a…
Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Analysis of Contemporary Power
There are few areas of society today that remain outside the ambit of policy processes, and likewise policy making has progressively reached into the structure and fabric of everyday life. An instrument of modern government, policy and its processes provide an analytical window into systems of governance themselves, opening up ways to study power and the construction of regimes of truth. This volume argues that policies are not simply coercive, c…
Sociology (18 works) · Political science (14 works) · Law (11 works) · Politics (9 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Estonian (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (5 works)