Encountering the Nigerian State [Paperback]

Thisvolume advances extant reflections on the state constituted as the Ur-Power in society, particularly in Africa.It analyzes how various agents within the Nigerian society'encounter' the state - ranging from the most routine form of contact to thespectacular. While many recent collections have reheated the old paradigms - of the perils of federalism; corruption; ethnicity etc, our focus here is on encounter , that is, the nuance and complexity of how the state shapes society and vice-versa.Through this, wedepart from the standard state versus society approach that proves so limiting in explaining the African political landscape.Excess and Abjection in the Study of the African State; E.Obadare & W.Adebanwi Deconstructing 'Oluwole': Political Economy at the Margins of the State; O.Ismail The Spatial Economy of Abjection: The Evacuation of Maroko Slum in Nigeria; S.Folarin 'Rotten English': Excremental Politics and Literary Witnessing; S.L.Lincoln The Perils of Protest: State Repression and Student Mobilization in Nigeria; B.Akintola Vocalizing Rage: Deconstructing the Language of Anti-State Forces; A.Olusola Olaniyan The Subaltern Encounters the State: OPC-State Relations 1999-2003; O.Olarinmoye The State as Undertaker: Power and Insurgent Media in Nigeria; A.Olukotun From Corporatist Power to Abjection: Labour and State Control in Nigeria; E.Remi Aiyede When the State Kills: Political Assassinations in Abacha's Nigeria; I.Olawale Albert The Sharia Challenge: Revisiting the Travails of the Secular State; R.Suberu Koma: A Glimpse of Life at the Edges of the State; M.Kabir Isa References

Those looking for standard versions of nascent democratization, the weak or failing state, familiar models of state-society relations, or the liberating and liberalizing effects of civil society should look away! Imaginative, erudite, and thought-provoking, this is the sort of sustained engagement with the space between state and citizens that the study of Nigeria has beel3F