Beyond
the People develops a provocative, interdisciplinary, and
meta-theoretical critique of the idea of popular sovereignty. It asks
simple but far-reaching questions: Can 'imagined' communities, or
'invented' peoples, ever be theorized without, at the same time, being
re-imagined and re-invented anew? Can polemical concepts, such as
popular sovereignty or constituent power, be theorized objectively? If,
as this book argues, the answer to these questions is no, theorists who
approach the figure of a sovereign people must acknowledge that their
activity is inseparable from the practice of constituent imagination.
Though widely accepted as important, even vital, for the development of
political concepts, the social practice of imagination is almost always
presumed to operate either historically or impersonally, but seldom
individually. Those who theorize the figures of popular sovereignty do
not see that they are, in effect, 'conjurors' of peoplehood. This book
invites constitutional, international, normative, and other political
and legal theorists of sovereign peoplehood to embrace the
conjuring-side of their professional identities, as a way of exploring
the possibility of moving beyond eternally recurring, insolvable, and
increasingly irrelevant questions. Instead of asking: Who is the people?
What is the function of constituent power? Where may the people
exercise its right to self-determination? Beyond the People asks the
reader to consider the prospect of a riskier and more adventurous
theoretical road, that opens with the question: What do I as a
'theorist-imaginer', or 'conjuror of peoplehood', assume, anticipate,
and aspire to as I theorize the vehicles that mediate the assumptions,
anticipations, and aspirations of others? This question is examined
throughout the book as it interrogates the idea of peoplehood beyond
disciplinary boundaries, showing how polemical, visual, affective,
conceptual, and allegorical language critically shapes our idea of
peoplehood. It offers a nuanced account of the contested relationship
between the social imaginary of peoplehood on the ground, and the
imaginative practices of the professional 'conjurors' of peoplehood in
the academy.
