Stategraphy-the ethnographic exploration of relational modes, boundary work, and forms of embeddedness of actors-offers crucial analytical avenues for researching the state. By exploring interactions and negotiations of local actors in different institutional settings, the contributors explore state transformations in relation to social security in a variety of locations spanning from Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans to the United Kingdom and France. Fusing grounded empirical studies with rigorous theorizing, the volume provides new perspectives to broader related debates in social research and political analysis.

Keebet von Benda-Beckmann is professor emeritus, former head of the Project Group Legal Pluralism, and currently associate of the Department of Law and Anthropology, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Recent publications include the coedited Rules of Law and Laws of Ruling: On the Governance of Law (Ashgate, 2009) and the coauthored Political and Legal Transformations of an Indonesian Polity (Cambridge University Press, 2013).

Introduction to Stategraphy: Toward a Relational Anthropology of the State
Tatjana Thelen, Larissa Vetters, and Keebet von Benda-Beckmann

Chapter 1. Contingent Statehood: Clientelism and Civic Engagement as Relational Modalities in Contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina
Larissa Vetters

Chapter 2. The State, Legal Rigor, and the Poor: The Daily Practice of Welfare Control
Vincent Dubois

Chapter 3. Relationships, Practices, and Images of the Local State in Rural Russia
Rebecca Kay

Chapter 4. Acts of Assistance: Navigating the Interstices of the British State with the Help of Non-profit Legal Advisers
Alice Forbess and Deborah James

Chapter 5. Images of Care, Boundaries of the State: Volunteering and Civil Society in Czech Health Care
Rosie Read

Chapter 6. State Kinning and Kinning the State in Serbian Elder Care Programs
Tatjana Thelen, Andre Thiemann, and DuSka Roth

Chapter 7. Workings of the State: Administrative Lists, European Union Food Aid, and the Local Practices of Distribution in Rural Romania
Stefan Dorondel and Mihai Popa

Chapter 8. Creating the State Locally through Welfare Provision: Two Mayors, Two Welfare Regimes in Rural Hungary
Gyöngyi Schwarcz and Alexandra Szoke

Bibliography
Index