Hailing the State

“Hailing the State asks us to think beyond collective action as ‘resistance’ and to consider instead the ways in which such action seeks to elicit recognition from and access to the state. Packed with richly detailed ethnographic and historical examples, the book offers an alternative perspective on the relationship between popular action in the streets, electoral politics, and state authority.” - Sherry B. Ortner, author of Screening Social Justice: Brave New Films and Documentary Activism

“Lisa Mitchell’s intensively researched and impressively perceptive book shows something of fundamental importance about the reality of India’s democracy that has escaped any previous interpreter: just how actively and inventively it is realized through the energies of its own citizens.” - John Dunn, author of Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy

“By being attentive to and stressing the various forms of hailing the state, Lisa Mitchell has produced a richly textured and theoretically nuanced study of how democracy is practiced in those long stretches between elections, the stretches that are arguably the most important aspect of how ordinary people participate. Conceiving of democracy in terms of its everyday practices and what it means for nonelites, Mitchell makes a distinctive and important contribution to a materialist political theory of democracy.” - Ajay Skaria, author of Unconditional Equality: Gandhi’s Religion of Resistance

"In redefining democratic practice to include collective assembly, Mitchell weaves an intricate picture of how people understand themselves as democratic citizens. Deftly combining approaches from anthropology, history, and political theory, she brings alive the mosaic of actions that they employ in what she terms “hailing the state.” She draws on very rich archival and ethnographic material to tell us the ways in which people have and continue to hail the state." - Lipika Kamra, Review of Politics

"The depth and breadth of Mitchell’s engagement through each of her cases, helps us to understand collective assemblies as being fundamental to democracy, and indeed to colonial and postcolonial genealogies thereof; addressing issues that get to the heart of not just what democracy is, when it is not just about elections, but also how we understand relations across colonial histories, and North-South divides." - Samarjit Ghosh, Democratization

"The book is conceptually very vibrant, so much so that there is a democracy framework ensuing throughout, dealing with the relationship between democracy and collective assemblies. It also dwells on the significance of these collective assemblies for a democracy in general and more centrally, for a democracy like India." - Survesh Pratap Singh, TheDaak

“Mitchell weaves an intricate picture of how people understand themselves as democratic citizens. Deftly combining approaches from anthropology, history, and political theory, she brings alive the mosaic of actions that they employ in what she terms ‘hailing the state.’” - Lipika Kamra, Review of Politics

"A critical intervention in socio-political thought." - Chinmaya Lal Thakur, Contemporary South Asia

“Michell’s book is historically rich, ethnographically grounded, and theoretically innovative. Her intervention is at once timely and cautionary for Indian democracy, as it highlights and situates the stakes of political recognizability for marginalized populations. Readers interested in political anthropology and history and subaltern and South Asian studies will no doubt find this book insightful.”
  - Roderick Wijunamai, Exertions

"Mitchell’s monograph is comprehensively researched, immersive, and a fascinating insight into the practise of democracy within Telangana and India, extensively employing both archival data and contemporary ethnography. She simultaneously centres democratic or dialogic attempts to compel an audience with the state, whilst taking care to acknowledge literature and action from those, like anarchists, who view themselves as oppositional to it or even oscillate between these two modes." - Harish Goutam, Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford

"Peppered with many arresting photographs of protests and political posters, the book allows one to feel the energy and almost hear the loud chants of the demonstrators as they go about “hailing the state.” Although the book’s empirical data come primarily from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, and parts of Uttar Pradesh, its analyses and findings are relevant for all of India and indeed beyond."

  - Zaheer Baber, American Ethnologist

"In this lucidly written book, Mitchell offers a novel approach to reading collective actions as interpellating the state, particularly with her descriptions of the intimacies of embodied democratic acts. . . . Hailing the State offers compelling insights into democratic theory and practice and would be particularly useful for scholars of postcolonial theory, performance and politics, and the Global South." - Rashi Mishra, Performance Research

"This book achieves a remarkable feat in developing a historically nuanced understanding of the democratic politics of historically marginalized citizens who adopt practices such as sit-ins and hunger strikes; petitioning the authorities; general strikes, rail and road blockades; ticketless travels in trains to the sites of power; alarm-chain pulling and people’s roar assemblies, through multi-sited ethnography of these practices. . . . The book successfully narrates the story of enchantment and longing for the democratic state in the lives of historically marginalized citizens in India." - Kunal Kishore, Studies in Indian Politics