{"product_id":"9780226731995","title":"Laughing at Leviathan: Sovereignty and Audience in West Papua","description":"For West Papua and its people, the promise of sovereignty has never been realized, despite a long and fraught struggle for independence from Indonesia. In \u003ci\u003eLaughing at Leviathan\u003c\/i\u003e, Danilyn Rutherford examines this struggle through a series of interlocking essays that drive at the core meaning of sovereignty itself—how it is fueled, formed, and even thwarted by pivotal but often overlooked players: those that make up an audience. Whether these players are citizens, missionaries, competing governmental powers, nongovernmental organizations, or the international community at large, Rutherford shows how a complex interplay of various observers is key to the establishment and understanding of the sovereign nation-state.   Drawing on a wide array of sources, from YouTube videos to Dutch propaganda to her own fieldwork observations, Rutherford draws the history of Indonesia, empire, and postcolonial nation-building into a powerful examination of performance and power. Ultimately she revises Thomas Hobbes, painting a picture of the Leviathan not as a coherent body but a fragmented one distributed across a wide range of both real and imagined spectators. In doing so, she offers an important new approach to the understanding of political struggle.","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47120205545712,"sku":"9780226731995","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780226731995_p0.jpg?v=1769915636","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780226731995","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}