Anthropological research of the state: A view on postsocialism

• Main Author: Simić Marina
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute of Ethnography, SASA, Belgrade 2017-01-01
• Series: Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU
• Subjects: anthropology of the state; Marxist tradition; Radcliffe-Brown; anthropology of postsocialist states
• Online Access: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2017/0350-08611701015S.pdf

The aim of this paper is twofold. It should point to the main directions in contemporary studies of the state as an idea and a set of institutional practices and to the ways in which the state can be theorized in the studies of European postsocialism. Anthropological studies of the changes in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall can be turned in the real laboratory for the studies of the state. Central characteristic of these changes is transformation of the state and political system. Anthropological studies of these processes are not merely an illustration of global processes, but an important contribution to the understanding of contemporary political processes in general. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 47021: Rodna ravnopravnost i kultura građanskog statusa: istorijska i teorijska utemeljenja u Srbiji]