Introduction: States Make Others, Others Make States

This introductory chapter to the edited volume States and the Making of Others presents the rationales for researching what it calls the “states-Others nexus”. It anchors the collection of contributions in a rich and diverse literature, and suggests that the concept of othering provides a fruitful theoretical and methodological framework for engaging in a dialogue between various fields of research—particularly those looking at racism and ethnicization, nationalism, xenophobia, sexism, and homo-transphobia. This framework both encompasses and broadens the discussion stimulated by the notions of “stigmatization” or “discrimination”. Defending the book’s focus on everyday statecraft and state-making, this chapter also demonstrates the importance of looking at othering from multiple perspectives—in the context of both “regalian” and “welfare” state institutions, and across a variety of geographical settings in Western Europe and Southern Africa. Finally, it highlights the book’s original contributions to the study of the state-Others nexus with regard to the ambivalent politics of recognition, redistribution, and redress, the differentiated legacies of former states’ modes of categorizing Others, and the globalized trends of neoliberal reforms of state institutions.