Within the scope of our interview series, scholar Dr Lotje de Vries talks about her research project funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. The latter deals with interactions between citizens and public authorities and how those sustain the everyday legitimacy of the state in Guinea Bissau and the Central African Republic. We asked her about the project itself but also the role of research trips and the project's contemporary relevance.
"Tendency to dismiss the relevance of the state"
L.I.S.A.: Dear Dr. de Vries, you are currently working on a research project on the topic of "Everyday Statehood at the Geopolitical Margin", which is funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation. Could you briefly explain the scope of your project? Why is it scientifically worthwhile to deal with the topic?
Dr. de Vries: This research seeks to empirically establish the meaning of the state and its public authorities in the lives of people in situations where at the national level, national politics is characterized by situations of constant crisis. This is important because there is a tendency to dismiss the relevance of the state, and the hopes that people place in it in contexts where the sovereign state appears largely absent. This dismissal happens in academic circles with terminology like weak or absent states, but also in policy circles where external actors operate largely outside the state. If we fail to study the mundane roles that public authorities play in the life of citizens and to take serious what people expect of their leaders, we only have a partial understanding of what statehood entails.