Introduction

In the long conversation that marks the course of a life or the building of a nation, the individual encounters many different societal instances, be they religious, medical, or scientific institutions, media accounts, myths, or industrial organizations. Societal instances all have something to say to us about how we should orient ourselves and act, about who we are and to whom we belong, but their commentaries are not all equally significant. In this book, we have focused on encounters with one such instance, the state and its proto-forms, not because it exerts the only such influence on life constructions, but because of the power attached to its commentary.

From an experiential perspective, the state in the industrialized West, despite its range of competitors and accomplices, exerts perhaps the most significant contemporary influence on the organization of lifecourses – that means, on the organization of nationness – more than all other social institutions. Herein lies the key to its legitimacy and its longevity.