Headless State

275 Pages·2007·17.659 MB·English

by  David Sneath

The Headless State
ARISTOCRATIC ORDERS, KINSHIP SOCIETY,
MISREPRESENTATIONS OF NOMAD IC INNER
David Sneath
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS New York
COLUMBIA ['NIVI2RSITY PRESS
Publishers Since i5<y
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2007 David Sneath
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataluging-in-PubLtcation Data
Sneath, David .
The Headless state . aristocratic orders, kinship society, and misrepresentations of
nomadic inner Asia / David Sneath.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-2.31-14054-6 (cloth . alk, paper)—ISBN 978-0-231-5H67-4 (e-book)
1. Asia, Central—Politic sand government—1991 - 2. Tribal government—Asia,
Central, 3. Clans—Asia ,Central. 4. Power (Social sciences)—Asia ,Central. 5, Aristocracy
(Political science)—Asia .Central. I. Title.
DS329.4.S64 2007
958 .042—DC22
2007020899
(gj) Columbia University Press books are printed 011 permanent and durable acid-free paper.
This book is printed on paper with recycled content.
Printed in the United States of America
c io 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 11
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the
author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or
changed since the manuscript was prepared.
This book is dedicated to Lisa. Adam, and Emily—
as representatives of long-suffering families everywhere.

MAP r. The Eurasian Sieppe and neighboring regions in ihe late sixth century.
(Qipchaks)
Naiiaan Khanale ^eiiyicl- Mongol
LnkellMmllJ Khanale
Q^N^Kltan
Kh^arzipian
Sultanate1,'
of Delhi;:-'
'>! Oman
.jirmain
MAP 2. The Eurasian Sreppe and neighboring regions in the late twelfth century.
Tsarist Russian Empire
' il
fliikr
Ly Hul,in
Kazakh Kbahate
wf-ct-
Lab Balkhash
Igar Oirat K\ aitate
KbaJkha Moijgol
Turkmen
buck
SUA
"Bukhflhic— -Kfrieshad-Girai
(]>eed Mongol
...
Tibet
SSfavid Persia
[1/ Oman
AltAH/A.V
SEA
TTie Eurasian Steppe and neighboring regions in the mid-sevenleenth century.
THE HEADLESS STATE
Introduction
This book has two aims: the first: is to expose a misconception that became
firmly rooted in twentieth-century social science, journalism, policymak-
ing. and popular culture. Since the colonial era, representations of Inner
Asia and its traditions and histories have been dominated by images of
fierce and free nomads organized by the principles of prestate kinship so-
ciety into clans and tribes. Anthropological fieldwork in Inner Mongolia
and Mongolia in the 1980s and 1990s convinced me that nothing like the
popular image of kinship society had existed recently in Mongolia, and the
more I studied the history of Inner Asia, the more apparent it became that
colonial-era notions of tribalism had powerfully distorted representations
of steppe societies and their past. On closer inspection, it was not "kinship
society" but aristocratic power and statelike processes of administration
that emerged as the more significant features of the wider organization of
life on the steppe.
This brings me to my second aim: to rethink the traditional dichotomy
between state and nonstate society and to approach the state in a differ-
ent way—in terms of the decentralized and distributed power found in
aristocratic orders. Viewing the state as a form of social relation rather