My use of the term “embrace” derives from the German word erfassen, which means to “grasp” or “lay hold of in the sense of register.” Thus, for example, foreigners registered at the Ausländerbehörde (Agency for Foreigners) are said to be ausländerbehördlich erfasst – i.e., registered for purposes of surveillance, administration, and regulation by that agency. People are also erfasst by the census. It says something important about the divergent processes of state-building on the European continent and in the Anglo-American world that we lack ordinary English equivalents for the German erfassen
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