State Performance and Biosocial Relatedness (RELATE.LV)

Project/agreement No.

lzp-2018/2-0070

Project funding

194 350.00 EUR

Project manager

asoc.prof. PhD Klāvs Sedlenieks

Project realization

01.12.2018. - 01.12.2020.

Aim

The main goal of RELATE.LV is to provide detailed and empirically based understandings of the interplay between biosocial relatedness (kinship) and the way the nation state is “done” or performed.

Description

The project is based on the theoretical assumption that the state is discursively constituted and brought into being, i.e., performed. This project combines recent advancements in the theory of kinship in complex societies and the theory of state performance, thus probing into the unexplored core of the contemporary state.

Over the course of 24 months, researchers will gather and analyse data obtained through ethnographic fieldwork, public texts and interviews across Latvia in order to gain insight in five different dimensions of polity: everyday life, bureaucratic encounters, genealogical past and challenges brought about by new genetic developments.

Project results will further the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of the contemporary state as well as provide grounds for adjusting the formal structure of the state to informally existing presuppositions and practices.

Project phases

Research platform development
Data gathering and analysis
Theoretical and practical implications
Dissemination

Research activities

Discussion about state, family and kinship, 20 November, 2020

Conference 'Anthropology of State Performance, Kinship and Relatedness', 5-6 November, 2020

Open lecture: Thomas Zitelmann, Freie Universitat Berlin: ‘Statehood, Politics and Kinship: An Ethiopianist Perspective on a Long Century of Traditions, Trends and Fashions in Anthropology’, 18 November 2019

Open lecture: Prof. Tatjana Thelen, University of Vienna: ‘State, Kinship, Care: An Anthropological Perspective’, 17 November 2019

Scientific articles

Saulītis, Andris. 2022. Debt Relief or Exit: The Long-Term Effects of Forex Loans on Latvian Households. Critical Housing Analysis 9 (1): 48–56. https://doi.org/10.13060/23362839.2022.9.1.540
Lūse, Agita. 2020. Remembering care and caring for memories: adoptees’ sources of self / Atceroties rūpes un rūpējoties par atmiņām: adopcijā uzaugušu cilvēku patības avoti. No The 4th International Oral History Conference GENERATION, MIGRATION AND MEMORY: NARRATIVE AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS, sast. Edmunds Šūpulis un Māra Zirnīte, 30–31. Rīga: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the University of Latvia. URI: https://dspace.lu.lv/dspace/handle/7/52989
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020. Phantom Rebellion: Performing the State in a Montenegrin Village and Beyond. Suomen Antropologi: Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Society 45 (1): 29–48. doi: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.v45i1.90978
Sedlenieks, Klāvs. 2020. Liquid crystal and the A1: densities of state from the perspective of a Montenegrin village. Social Anthropology 28 (2): 496–511. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12788
Rolle, Kristīne un Agita Lūse. 2020. Between the state and the kin: one-person household social security in Latvia. European Integration Studies 1 (14): 90–102. doi:10.5755/j01.eis.1.14.26375

Research reports