Durable governance assemblages at the margins: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

This introduction to the Special Issue outlines key concepts and entry points for the analysis of ‘durable governance assemblages at the margins’. The notion of the state's margins sheds light on the ways that states continually revise their forms of order-making in relation to populations that they deem illegible and unruly. However, we argue it is necessary to also consider the role of relatively organised nonstate actors who also contribute decisively to the coordination of collective life in these settings. Analyses of governance have captured the growth of multi-actor arrangements in diverse contexts, but have typically focused on formally constituted organisations, rather than the socially embedded but institutionally invisibilised actors that typically operate at the margins. The concept of assemblage helps to capture the multipolar, situated and dynamic governance arrangements, involving both state and nonstate actors, that emerge in such contexts. Rather than just emphasising continual flux, conceiving of governance assemblages as durable helps to identify how such arrangements are in fact sustained over time through the consolidation of relationships and routines between different actors and in relation to both stable and lively material environments. To further develop this approach and introduce the diverse contributions to the SI, we present six analytical entry points, which we label: (1) the everyday state; (2) direct contestation; (3) subaltern self-organisation; (4) alternative authorities; (5) hidden interfaces; and (6) governance ecologies.