'Didier Fassin is one of the most imaginative social scientists of our time. This book should be considered not only as required reading for all scholars in the field, but also for all active citizens'
- Pierre Rosanvallon, Professor of Modern and Contemporary History of Politics at the Collège de France,
'An important collection of finely wrought case studies of various institutions through which the state interacts with its most precarious populations. A major contribution at the too rarely visited crossroads of political and moral anthropology'
- Joel Robbins, Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge,
'This extraordinary collection delivers novel ethnographic questions and insights with regard to the literal and figurative dilemmas of alienation and incorporation within the contemporary state'
- Carol J. Greenhouse, Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor of Anthropology and Department Chair at Princeton University,