Abstract
This article results from discussions about the perpetuated idea of the state and the use of the ethnographic method in the study of state agents and institutions. For this, the state border control practices that were part of the border closure process carried out by agents and institutions that are grouped in the Centro de Frontera Iguazú, located on the argentine side of the cross-border region of the Tri-Border Area of Paraná. The writing has a theoretical position that makes use of the notion of the nation state as a discursive abstraction, but, on the other hand, taking into account that it is (con)formed and materialized by agents and institutions articulated with each other, which present their own particularities inside. This generates a break with the static notions that come to consider the state as an omnipresent and homogeneous entelechy.
Keywords:
state; borders; border control; border closures; ethnography; Tri-Border Area of Paraná