Society Despite the State by Anthony Ince and Gerónimo Barrera de la Torre is a sharp critique of the logic of the state, a tightly woven tapestry of threads that question the social structure that we often draw on without a thought. Rather than the primary architect of social order, as the state is so often perceived, Ince and Barrera de la Torre construct for us a state that is inseparable from racism, division, and repression. Discussions about the state’s revision of time, history, myth, land, and other concepts weave together to reveal the blanket of statism over our eyes, an unconscious (or conscious) reproduction of state power that leads to narrow and ineffective ideas about how to resolve our pressing socio-ecological issues. However, vibrant social actions and communities can, and do, thrive despite this statism, kindled by non-state actors, social movements, and people who prove that pluralist visions of flourishing are alive and well without the intervention of government aid or state support. This bottom-up imagination and action constitutes proof that the state can be decentered or challenged- that we can pull the blanket off our heads, so to speak- despite its apparent supremacy. Ince and Barrera de la Torre’s conclusion is that it is necessary to see the ordinariness of the state. We must acknowledge that the state in its modern form began recently (within the last 200 years is recent in the grand scheme of human life on earth) and that it has failed to act as the omnipresent benevolent force that it parades as (p. 82). The state has the potential to be shaken, changed, done away with, or simply ignored as we the people see fit. Seeing the state in this way reminds us that our current system is one option among many, that we have the freedom to question and to change what appears to be “just how things are.” It is ultimately people and their variable social relationships- us- that constitutes the state, and we have the power to reweave our reality differently (p. 14).
Readers may be asking- is there a reason for the consistent use of fiber arts language in this synopsis? The book is broken into three parts, and the first sets the narrative up with weaving metaphors aplenty. Although a bit heavy-handed, artistically speaking, “Part 1: Threads” uses the idea of strings and fibers to effectively draw together the state’s logics as a version of normalcy that is felted to every Western concept and tradition. To understand these interconnections is to see them and untangle them from our practice as geographers, scholars, and activists. The language in this section is evocative and effective, but it is then unceremoniously dropped in “Part 2: Myths” and “Part 3: Horizons.” I thought that the weaving metaphors in the first section would eventually connect back to the feminist elements of the pluriverse that the book rests on- fiber arts is a historically functional and feminine task and the pluriverse and imaginaries grow from, in part, a feminist scholarly tradition. However, that was not the case. I love a running metaphor and so I wish that the book as a “tapestry” of insightful ideas could’ve also been a completed tapestry of weaving and felting imagery. However, in general I found Society Despite the State to be a skillfully written and thought-provoking manual for reassessing our unquestioning reliance on the state for social change and activism.
One key aspect of the book’s argument is a focus on “statism” rather than “state.” “State,” the authors argue, can too easily be used in critical geography to point to the specific institutions and historical contexts of one particular nation or location. This approach evades discussions about the state as a kind of social organization, instead creating a less poignant claim about individual examples (p. 151). Conversely, “statism” is defined as “a conscious or unconscious reproduction of the logics of state order” that encompasses a broader form of state that includes government actions, interpersonal relationships, and social reproduction (p. 5). Focusing on statism helps us to identify commonalities between a wide range of contexts, examining not only the state itself but also the everyday practices and cultural institutions that reinforce it. A critical analysis through this lens reveals the unanimity of the limitations that the state places on our ability to imagine alternatives (p. 151).
In short, statism is the foundational logic of all states, the common netting that catches us all in a false reality where hierarchy is logical and oppression is unavoidable (p. 50-51). However, this “reality” is in fact quite fragile, something with inherent contradictions that can be robbed of its power through a decentering of its onology. Decentering here means de-ontologizing the state’s “natural” position in our worldview, recognizing that it is not the only, nor the best, way to organize our social processes (p. 4). This concept is highly convincing because it describes the fluidity of the present, acknowledging both the countless non-statist interactions that are happening at one time (gift-giving, non-hierarchical businesses, etc.) and the precarity of all states and “dominant” regimes. Geographers often interrogate mainstream inequality, hegemony, and pluralist alternatives, but I agree with the authors that these ideas are rarely combined and extended to a critique of the logics of the state (a critique of statism) (p. 11). Decentering offers us an interesting way to go about this: by questioning the ways that statism has created a false reality and describing non-statist alternatives which already exist and potentially succeed, thus illustrating how there is no one default system, people are empowered to see their interactions and relationships as fluid and highly influential for moving beyond the borders of our current future visions.
In contrast to other books that this lab group has read (I am thinking of volumes like James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State), Society Despite the State takes an explicitly anarchist approach to statism and its solutions. However, this is also accompanied by a strong critique of anarchism, as the authors acknowledge its ties to ethnocentrism and colonialism. What the authors settle upon is a use of anarchist thought to approach statism and “post-statism” while also carefully appealing for movement away from a class-based, westernized model of anarchism towards one that incorporates mutual learning, de-hierarchy, and plurality. Key to this is a focus on varied background and identity over class. The idea is that a radical pluriverse of effective anti-statist efforts is woven from the friction and convergence of many identities and realities. The authors state, “In seeking alternatives to dominant statist ways of knowing, we argue for ‘epistemic encounters’: the ensemble of multiple epistemologies (decolonial, Black, feminist, indigenous, anarchist, etc.) that, through their radical, historically and geographically rooted cosmovisions… weave affinities across often highly uneven global power relations (p. 23).”
This brings up interesting questions for me, especially as, just pages before, Ince and Barrera de la Torre discuss how certain identities and epistemologies are a direct result of state tampering. For example, indigeneity is labelled and designated by the state to create an Other- without this form of colonialism, the book notes, “indigenous” is meaningless (p. 22). I imagine that to ignore the state and to shake off these harmful statist associations and labels is to act despite the state. However, this action would also be ignoring the very real historical consequences of the state as it shapes identity and epistemology. At the same time that indigeneity is a statist label, it is also a worldview that the authors themselves name and legitimize. I set out questioning how we might imagine identity beyond, or removed from, the state, but it seems like a better question is how we might identify and organize within the multicolored, frayed carpet that constitutes the state, the people, and the environment. The state can’t be erased or omitted from history, but it can be left out of present conversations and future plans, just as is possible with all other temporary, ordinary things.
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