Trust in the state

Scholars have increasingly coined trust as one of the key aspects of human existence and contemporary social interactions: some see it as a form of affect, while others study the conditions under which it emerges or fades away (Weichselbraun et al. 2023). Until recently, the idea of (mis)trust had mainly been studied in connection to interpersonal relationships (Bell 2016; Carey 2017), economic transactions (Rubbers 2009) and religion (Ashforth 2005; Geschiere 2013). In a recently edited collection, Anna Weichselbraun and colleagues (2023) shifted the focus from intimate spheres to ‘technologies of trust’. This issue continues that shift, bringing the anthropological study of trust into a new field by exploring the concrete practices and effects of trust in the state, what these reveal about the ideas and imaginations of the state, and the daily practices of those who embody it.