Ferguson, J., & Gupta, A. (2002). Spatializing states: toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality. American ethnologist, 29(4), 981-1002.

In this exploratory article, we ask how states come to be understood as enti- ties with particular spatial characteristics, and how changing relations be- tween practices of government and national territories may be challenging long-established modes of state spatiality. In the first part of this article, we seek to identify two principles that are key to state spatialization: verticality (the state is vabove" society) and encompassment (the state "encompasses" its localities). We use ethnographic evidence from a maternal health project in India to illustrate our argument that perceptions of verticality and encompass- ment are produced through routine bureaucratic practices. In the second part, we develop a concept of transnational governmentality as a way of grasping how new practices of government and new forms of "grassroots" politics may call into question the principles of verticality and encompass- ment that have long helped to legitimate and naturalize states' authority over vthe local." [states, space, governmentality, globalization, neoliberalism, India, Africa