Affective States

Mateusz Laszczkowski is an assistant professor at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Warsaw, where he teaches political anthropology, with a focus on place, space, material infrastructures, and affect. He is the author of 'City of the Future': Built Space, Modernity and Urban Change in Astana (Berghahn Books, 2016).

“Overall, Affective States is well written, fascinating, and importantly highlights the complex ways in which affect, emotion, and feeling are inherent within, critical to, and constitutive of states. Each chapter engages both with different theorizations of how these affective states are transmitted and circulate, and with the broader framework outlined by the editors.” • JRAI (Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) “A brilliant contribution that brings political anthropology into ethnographic and conceptual conversation with affect theory. Each of the book chapters provides a unique ethnographic angle on ‘affective states,’ with a fantastic, field-defining introduction.” • Yael Navaro, University of Cambridge“A pioneering volume on contemporary political life that offers an exciting new approach to theorizing the state through the lens of affect, one that focuses our attention on the powerful structures of sentiment that mediate relations between citizens and government. A must read for those who want to understand the affective intensities of politics in these very uncertain times.” • Christina Schwenkel, University of California, Riverside

• Introduction: Affective States: Entanglements, Suspensions, SuspicionsMateusz Laszczkowski and Madeleine ReevesChapter 1. Negotiating Uncertainty: Neo-liberal Statecraft in Contemporary PeruAnnabel Pinker and Penny HarveyChapter 2. The Fines and the Spies: Fears of State Surveillance in Eritrea and in the DiasporaDavid BozziniChapter 3. “Recognize the Spies”: Transparency and Political Power in Uzbek CyberspaceSarah KendziorChapter 4. Moral Subjectivity and Affective Deficit in the Transitional State: On Claiming Land in South AfricaChristiaan BeyersChapter 5. ‘Father Mao’ and the Country-Family: Mixed Feelings for Fathers, Officials, and Leaders in ChinaHans SteinmüllerChapter 6. The Turn of the Offended: Clientelism in the Wake of El Salvador’s 2009 ElectionsAinhoa MontoyaChapter 7. Living from the Nerves: Deportability, Indeterminacy, and the ‘Feel of Law’ in Migrant MoscowMadeleine ReevesAfterword: Political TimequakesMateusz Laszczkowski and Madeleine Reeves