Abstract
1. Why does the state occupy your mind – why do you wish to study the state?
2. In what ways does the state occupy the minds of your interlocutors?
3. What is the connection between their interests and yours as a researcher?
The state is constantly in the crossfire of our enquiries because even when we try to ignore it, to study for example, informal relations or acts of citizenship or when it appears to be absent in the field, the state becomes a point of reference for these analyses. We search for the boundaries between state, civil society, and the private sector, question the difference between the government and the state, trying to forge connections between theories and models and the imaginings and performances of the state we encounter in the field. We empathise with our interlocutors’ anger over state intrusions into their private lives, its lack of accountability and violent practices and with their expectations for service delivery and the upholding of human rights. We also conduct research studying up to discover the value of multiple perspectives and experience the relational nature of the state from the inside. We study categorizations and political subjectivities and discover that some people see us as representatives of the state. We juggle with the tensions between our academic goals and the interests of our interlocutors: how do we deal with them, how far can we delve into the unspoken, to what degree should we become involved? The conversation continues…