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2 - Practicing Legitimation

The ‘How’ of Non/State Governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2022

Kathy Dodworth
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

This chapter lays out the epistemological, methodological and ethical considerations in answering the book’s core question. Legitimation requires a considerable amount of work and indeed creativity, rendered invisible by some methodologies to date. A practice-based approach, here bolstered by the use of critical ethnography, places the agential, iterative and relational aspects of legitimation centre frame. Such an approach benefits from late modern writers in the West but also crucially insights from anti/postcolonial scholars, including on the African continent. The chapter sets out a moral concern regarding the location of the always assumed, never seen, legitimation ‘subject’, obscured by the shadow of theory-making or developmental problem-solving. It argues that interpretive praxeology speaks to both methodological and ethical concerns, aiding the move to deverticalize research. The chapter also sets out the particular value of the Tanzanian case in the wake of its rapid liberalization, both in its specificities but also its broader resonance as a microcosm of the reconstituting public, with the global inserted into the local in new and illuminating ways.

Type
Chapter
Information
Legitimation as Political Practice
Crafting Everyday Authority in Tanzania
, pp. 37 - 57
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Practicing Legitimation
  • Kathy Dodworth, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Legitimation as Political Practice
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030397.005
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  • Practicing Legitimation
  • Kathy Dodworth, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Legitimation as Political Practice
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030397.005
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Practicing Legitimation
  • Kathy Dodworth, University of Edinburgh
  • Book: Legitimation as Political Practice
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009030397.005
Available formats
×