Dynamics of wilful blindness: An introduction

Bovensiepen, Judith M.; Pelkmans, Mathijs

doi:10.1177/0308275x20959432

Cited by 22 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…While cunning senior consultants were certainly trained in and aware of a host of strategic behaviours that would make them more attractive to clients, they also considered a focus on immediate tasks at hand, on the positive economic potential of the world, and on the manifold options inherent in managerial decision-making to reflect basic common sense. This supports the insight that wilful blindness should be thought of as a spectrum ranging from deliberate unawareness to normalised blindness (Bovensiepen and Pelkmans, 2020).…”

Section: Conclusion: An Interplay Of Ignorancesupporting

confidence: 73%

Blinded by the slide show: Ignorance and the commodification of expertise

Stein

2020

Critique of Anthropology

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This article investigates how commodification operates with reference to expertise, rather than material objects. By drawing on the work of German management consultants, it highlights three forms of ignorance that arise as part of commodifying expertise. These are here described as ignorance due to profit, ignorance due to rhetoric and ignorance due to strong assumptions. These forms of ignorance render invisible the wider socio-economic effects of consulting, hide the degree to which corporate representations may not reflect the world they purport to describe, and postulate specific yet highly skewed understandings of freedom regarding human subjects. Taken together, they point out that a distinguishing feature of the commodification of expertise, vis-à-vis that of material objects, is that it provides greater scope for the creation and use of ignorance, as it blurs the boundaries between commodity and context.

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Section: Conclusion: An Interplay Of Ignorancesupporting

confidence: 73%

Blinded by the slide show: Ignorance and the commodification of expertise

Stein

2020

Critique of Anthropology

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“…I approach wilful blindness not as an individual trait but as a corporate asset, a discursive tool in the armoury of corporate political strategy, deployed in order to divert, disarm or realign challenges that threaten their capacity to survive and exploit new frontiers. Here we find wilful blindness not so much 'oiling the wheels of social life' (Bovensiepen and Pelkmans, 2020) as lubricating the workings of corporate life. This corporate myopia is created by a carefully crafted performance of CSR, which brings into focus only those aspects of a carbon-constrained world that are amenable to a company's extractive ambitions, blacking out the rest, while positioning extractive companies as warriors against (rather than purveyors of) climate change.…”

Section: Higher Powersmentioning

confidence: 94%

Waiting for a deus ex machina: ‘Sustainable extractives’ in a 2°C world

Rajak

2020

Critique of Anthropology

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In recent years the oil industry has shifted from climate change denialism to advocacy of the Paris Agreement, championing sustainability in an apparent assertion (rather than rejection) of corporate responsibility. Meanwhile growth forecasts continue unabated to finance the industry’s enthusiasm for upstream ventures in uncharted territories. How do extractive companies, and those who work in them, square this contradiction? Fieldwork among oil company executives points to a new wave of techno-optimism: a deus ex machina that will descend from the labs of corporate research and development (R&D) labs to reconcile these irreconcilable imperatives. Rather than denial, the projection of win-win synergies between growth and sustainability involves a suspension of disbelief; an instrumental faith in the miraculous power of technology that tenders salvation without forsaking fossil fuels, or restructuring markets.

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“…Indeed, both anthropologists and sociologists have demonstrated that, under certain circumstances, ignorance is neither the absence nor the inverse of knowledge. Rather, it is a concerted effort, one that is produced and sustained by people in positions of power, as well as those subject to it, as a way to cope, deceive others, avoid conflicts, preserve peaceful relationships, and maintain the status quo (Babidge 2018; Benson and Kirsch 2010; Bovensiepen and Pelkmans 2020; McGoey 2012; Proctor and Schiebinger 2008). Therefore, to understand the sociocultural production of ignorance, “one would have to investigate not gaps in knowledge—which is where most existing studies of ignorance have concentrated their efforts—but rather the production, out of the infinite sea of things that people happen not to know, of culturally recognized .…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

The art of unnoticing

Lou¹

2022

American Ethnologist

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In China many petrochemical plants are adjacent to residential areas. Despite this, the people who live in these areas appear indifferent to the threat of toxic pollution and chemical explosions, even though they are aware of the danger. Building on historical and social studies of ignorance, I show how residents in a southern Chinese city live with the threat of petrochemicals by practicing what I call the "art of unnoticing," a contrived form of ignorance that enables them to live with the reality of pollution and reclaim their agency in face of the unavoidable. In light of this, I reflect on the limit and complexity of the global environmental justice when willful ignorance is at work. The next step forward is to understand what it is that people are unnoticing, as well as what unnoticing can do to people's lifeworlds. [ignorance, toxicity, chemicals, risk perception, industrial pollution, fenceline communities, environmental justice, fatalism, China] A s my driver Dong drove past the petrochemical plant in Huangpu District, in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, I tried to take a few photos of the industrial landscape. 1 "What are you shooting?" Dong asked. "I'm trying to take some photos of the petrochemical plants," I responded. "The petrochemical plants? What's special about them?" he asked casually. I know he was not being sarcastic. As someone who had lived in Huangpu all his life, Dong was genuinely curious about why an industrial district full of factories and wharves, connected to yet far from the glamorous new town of Guangzhou, would interest anyone."Well, don't you think the petroleum structures are pretty striking? The refineries, the oil tankers, the chimneys. They're right in front of you. You can't not notice them, can you?" To my surprise, Dong said rather matter-of-factly, "I don't notice them. They're always here. They've been here before me." Really? I thought to myself, perplexed. As I gazed at the red-and-white chimney outside the window (see Figure 1), Dong told me about the financial benefits and health risks of working for Sinopec, China's major state-owned oil and gas company, which is now the world's largest petrochemical conglomerate. He learned about these from his best friend from primary school, whose entire family worked for Sinopec.The next afternoon, when I headed out for another day of fieldwork, I passed by a branch of the China Construction Bank, housed in a building undergoing renovation. Although I was standing far away, the smell of formaldehyde was so pungent that I felt a burning sensation in my eyes, nose, and tongue. I should have left immediately, but I was captivated by the scene of a renovation worker taking a nap on one of the dusty work tops. His shirt was covered with paint, and he wore no safety helmet, no face mask, and no protective clothing. He seemed unbothered by the formaldehyde smell (see Figure 2). Immediately, this scene brought me back to when my driver Dong said, "I don't notice them."

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Dynamics of wilful blindness: An introduction

Cited by 22 publications

References 46 publications

Blinded by the slide show: Ignorance and the commodification of expertise

Blinded by the slide show: Ignorance and the commodification of expertise

Waiting for a deus ex machina: ‘Sustainable extractives’ in a 2°C world

The art of unnoticing

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