LAUSR

Jennifer Riggan’s engaging and compassionate ethnography The Struggling State: Nationalism, Mass Militarization and the Education of Eritrea provides a fascinating insight into the role of Eritrean teachers following the 2000– 2002 war with Ethiopia. Tasked with hyphenating the nation to the state in the context of everyday authoritarianism and dramatic educational reform, teachers constructed an imaginary of the state for themselves, students, and parents. Riggan’s research centers on Assab, a port city in Eritrea’s southeastern periphery with strong historical links to Ethiopia. Using long-term, intimate fieldwork and scholarly research that is both broad and meticulous, Riggan presents Eritrean schools as a space in which the state narrative was vulnerable to subversion. The author carried out fieldwork from 2003 to 2005, after the violent suppression of political critics and the expansion and indefinite extension of national service. The Struggling State is set in the context of growing disillusionment, as Eritreans ceased to view the state as essentially benevolent, but rather punitive and coercive, a transformation ultimately responsible for the departure of over 12 percent of its citizens. The governing People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) has neutralized critics, expelled NGOs, and systematically destroyed any meaningful research culture in Eritrea. Academic work is notoriously difficult, rendering Riggan’s access all the more remarkable. Riggan employs in-depth interviews of teachers and directors in junior and secondary schools in Assab, in addition to the observation of classes, school rituals, and informal exchanges, as the basis of her analysis. She also draws on interviews with staff in the Department of Education and a variety of materials released by the PFDJ. The wealth of material collected is palpable, and the voices of teachers and students, including verbatim accounts of classroom interactions, are woven throughout the book. Chapter One provides an overview of the complex historical context that shaped Eritrean nationalism. Riggan traces the development of a revolutionary ideology that differentiated the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (direct precursor of the PFDJ) from its predecessors and details how