Feeling Like a State: Desire, Denial, and the Recasting of Authority

Global and Insurgent Legalities

by Davina Cooper

A transformative progressive politics requires the state's reimagining. But how should the state be reimagined, and what can invigorate this process? In Feeling Like a State, Davina Cooper explores the unexpected contribution a legal drama of withdrawal might make to conceptualizing a more socially just, participative state. In recent years, as gay rights have expanded, some conservative Christians—from charities to guesthouse owners and county clerks—have denied people inclusion, goods, and services because of their sexuality. In turn, liberal public bodies have withdrawn contracts, subsidies, and career progression from withholding conservative Christians. Cooper takes up the discourses and practices expressed in this legal conflict to animate and support an account of the state as heterogeneous, plural, and erotic. Arguing for the urgent need to put new imaginative forms into practice, Cooper examines how dissident and experimental institutional thinking materialize as people assert a democratic readiness to recraft the state.

272 pages, Paperback

Published September 6, 2019

Reviews

[Raoul W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting re-framing of the concept of what a 'State' is and how it can be a positive force in transformative social change; enjoyed learning about the "legal drama" involving the withdrawal of services by some organizations from gay customers, and the subsequent withdrawal by the state of licenses, funding, etc. from such organizations choosing to put their religion above equality. The concept of possessive-individualism and the notion of believes as one's property to be defended by the state also sparked some reflection and inspired me to continue exploring this line of thought.

[Chrissy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was highly abstract. I found myself interested in Cooper’s theories, but her vision of the state was largely open-ended and at times unclear.