The Second Life of Institutions: Social Poetics in a Digital State

• Published in: Anthropological quarterly Vol. 83; no. 2; pp. 355 - 371
• Main Author: Malaby, Thomas M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research 01.04.2010; Institute for Ethnographic Research
• Subjects: Analysis; Anthropologists; Bureaucracy; Business structures; Colonization; Computer programming; Corporate bureaucracy; CRITICAL ENGAGEMENTS WITH CULTURAL INTIMACY; Criticism and interpretation; Cultural anthropology; Cultural factors; Disorders; Ethnographic research; Ethnography; Fallibility; Games; Governance; Herzfeld, Michael; Illegitimacy; Institutions; Intimacy; Language Usage; Language use; Nation state; Nation states; Nationalism; Poetics; Symbolism; Technology; Technology and civilization; Verbal behaviour; Virtual worlds; Weber, Max (1864-1920); Works; United States; New York; Crete; Chicago Illinois; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US
• ISSN: 0003-5491; 1534-1518; 1534-1518
• DOI: 10.1353/anq.0.0119

In the bureaucratic moments that Michael Herzfeld describes, functionaries of the nation-state deny the contingent points of possible connection with their hapless subjects yet draw on a common symbolic language to do so—thus is the institution reproduced. Such ethnographic moments implicitly rely on other moments, those informed by their expressed lack of total order: illicit activities, games, and competitive verbal performance; cultural intimacy is generated in such occasions of private fallibility. This article explores what happens when a different kind of institution, a virtual world maker, attempts to colonize such disorder to govern legitimately.