Review of ‘Liminal sovereignty practices: Rethinking the inside/outside dichotomy’
| Author | Maria Mälksoo |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836720931135 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Cooperation and Conflict
Review of ‘Liminal
2020, Vol. 55(3) 305–307
! The Author(s) 2020
sovereignty practices:
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836720931135
Rethinking the inside/
journals.sagepub.com/home/cac
outside dichotomy’
Maria M€
alksoo
Keywords
Liminality, sovereignty, political anthropology, practices
The online publication of the article ‘Liminal sovereignty practices: Rethinking the
inside/outside dichotomy’ moves away from the standard depiction of sovereignty
as operating on the line between the inside and the outside of the state (Loh and
Heiskanen, 2020). The authors seek to reconceptualize the said dividing line
(border line) as a liminal space (border space) and, by extension, theorize the con-
cept of liminality in greater depth and nuance. Sovereignty is accordingly taken to
be grounded in three distinct spaces (the domestic society, the international realm
and the liminal space between the two), loaded with various sovereignty practices.
Liminality is theorized as an attribute of sovereignty. The authors offer a system-
atization of various ambiguous types of ‘borderline’ sovereignty, contesting the
standard notions and practices of sovereignty to varying degrees. The article dis-
tinguishes between four distinct kinds of liminality: marginal (e.g., contested
states); hybrid (e.g., indigenous peoples/tribal sovereignty); interstitial (e.g., non-
state actors); and external (e.g., terrorists and anarchists) liminality – each with
unique actors, practices and consequences for the concept of sovereignty.
I am quite enthralled by the article and find its general argument compelling and
persuasively made. The article is well-pitched and accessibly written, offering a nice
roundup of the poststructuralist literature on sovereignty and a well-framed con-
tribution to the rich debate on sovereignty as a relationship rather than a property
or possession. The authors usefully systematize the manifold practices...
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