Gendered Scripts in Everyday State Life. Notes on Research Strategies

PERELMITER, LUISINA; GOLDSMITH WEIL, JAEL

Chicago

Congreso; Social Science History Association Anual Metting 2019; 2019

SSHA

Gender-attentive state ethnographies have consistently claimed that instead of a monolithic and coherent entity, states are better understood as arenas with multiple, sometimes contradictory institutions, orientations, actors, motives, and effects. Disaggregating the state has been a common research strategy consistent with that claim. Product of these important works, we certainly know more now about the life of states. However, this body of literature faces challenges in finding a shared language of contribution in mainstream social science and policy studies. Building on case studies from Argentina and Chile, we deploy the concept of gendered scripts operationalized at the dimensions of values, aesthetics, and strategies regularly associated to the feminine and to the masculine in order to make sense of diverse scenarios of everyday state life. We propose conceptual re-aggregation of the state via identifying links between those micro level statecrafts and more ubiquitous and generalized forms of legitimate authority across society.