Governance and Processes of Bureaucratization

Bureaucracies form an integral part of contemporary life. Bureaucratic procedures inform everyday decision making, the experience of selfhood and extraordinary or quotidian practices across the world. And while bureaucratic routines and things are vehicles for multifarious state-people interactions, they also inform governance dynamics beyond the purview of the state.

This workshop addresses the intersections of bureaucracies and governance from the ground up, following two overlapping agendas. It explores, first, how bureaucratic processes and materialities are reshaped by diverse actors as they relate to projects of ordering and governing. Second, the workshop also explores how bureaucratization permeates everyday worlds beyond the state-population interface, informing and reorganizing governance at various levels. This will allow for an empirically grounded theorizing of the matters and the routines of politics.

Framed by two public keynotes, we discuss pre-circulated papers exploring the theme of workshop through case studies from across the Global South.