Overlapping Sovereignties

Gurus and Citizenship

Bibliographic Data

ID20044065
AuthorsAya Ikegame (corresponding author)
Year2015
Pages101-119
Publication date2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueCitizenship after Orientalism (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan UK (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/9781137479501_6
OpenAlexW2488852651
ISBN9781137479501
LanguageEN
References cited32

Political anthropologists have been arguing that the actual working of the state or sovereign-like figures such as big-men and gangsters are quite different from a normative understanding of a compact, centralized, and unifying sovereignty. The distinction should not, though, be drawn between a Western norm and an Eastern anomaly, as political orientalism has tended to do. The difference should instead be found between molar and molecular forms of sovereignty. While molar sovereignty insists on its own exclusive and indivisible nature, molecular sovereignties connect each other and constantly change their original forms. By examining an ethnographical example of an informal arbitration court run by a religious ruler, or guru, in southern India, this chapter argues that the ways in which a guru as a sovereign performer interacts with other performers — in this case, the state, politicians, mining companies — opens up a space where a more inclusive and possibly democratic ethos could emerge.KeywordsMining CompanyCaste GroupReligious AuthorityLegal BodyComplicated PlaceThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves

Citizenship · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Socioeconomic Development in Asia · South Asian Cinema and Culture

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