In this lecture Martijn Koster will reconceptualise periphery-state interactions from the vantage point of the periphery. He approaches the variety of interactions between marginalised residents and the state as a politics of the periphery, a diverse politics in its own right and on its own terms that emerges from local modes of agency. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Recife, Brazil, and new research in Cuba and Colombia, Martijn Koster will discuss emic political and moral notions and images to better understand residents' relationships with the state.