On Precariousness and the Ethical Imagination: The Year 2012 in Sociocultural Anthropology

Muehlebach, Andrea

doi:10.1111/aman.12011

Cited by 141 publications

(62 citation statements)

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“…Leinaweaver (2010) notes innovations in ethnographic technique from collaborative writing projects to new mapping technologies. Muehlebach (2013) notes the increasing precarity of labor practices in our discipline and asks after the reach of the ethical imagination of our discipline. Dole focuses on the Arab Spring to think about the kinds of publics anthropology might address.…”

Section: Previous Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ends of Anthropology: 2014 in U.S. Sociocultural Anthropology

Hankins

2015

American Anthropologist

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In this essay, I trace the operations of a moral optimism and a skepticism that lie, uneasily, at the foundation of sociocultural anthropology. As other authors of year-in-review pieces have noted, anthropology is motivated by a moral optimism pointing toward the possibilities of an ethically and politically better life. Equally as fundamental, I argue, is a rigorous skepticism interrogating the shifting conditions that give life to anthropology's possibility. Here, I follow the productive tension between these two stances through the sociocultural anthropology of 2014, loosely grouping that work under the rubrics of "ends," "immediacy," "ecology," and "refusal." Throughout, I make a push for increased attention to our ethic of skepticism as means of tempering the discipline's moral optimism. [optimism, skepticism, immediacy, connection, year in review, sociocultural anthropology] RESUMENEn este ensayo, delineo las operaciones de un optimismo moral y un escepticismo que yacen, incómodamente, en la fundación de la antropología sociocultural. Como otros autores de los artyículos del año en revisión lo han notado, la antropología está motivada por un optimismo moral señalando hacia las posibilidades de una vidaética y políticamente mejor. Igualmente fundamental, argumento, es un escepticismo riguroso interrogando las condiciones cambiantes que dan vida a la posibilidad de la antropología. Aquí, sigo la tensión productiva entre estas dos posiciones a través de la antropología cultural del 2014, agrupando en líneas generales ese trabajo bajo las rúbricas de "fines", "inmediatez", "ecología", y "rechazo". A lo largo, presiono por una atención creciente a nuestraética de escepticismo, como un medio de temperar el optimismo moral de la disciplina. [optimismo, escepticismo, inmediatez, conexión, año en revisión, antropología sociocultural] ON SKEPTICISM AND OPTIMISMIn this essay, I review work in U.S. sociocultural anthropology from 2014. At the same time, I argue for attention to a skepticism that lies at the heart of our discipline, frequently overshadowed by the equally longstanding moral optimism that fuels our discipline's forward tilt. Michel de Montaigne begins his 16th-century essay "On the Cannibals" by questioning the chauvinistic tendency for anyone to call "barbarous anything he is not accustomed to" (1991:231). He argues, in counterpoint, for seeing the barbarism of the "we": "Those 'savages' are only wild in the sense that we call fruits wild when they are produced by Nature in her ordinary course: whereas it is fruit we

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Section: Previous Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ends of Anthropology: 2014 in U.S. Sociocultural Anthropology

Hankins

2015

American Anthropologist

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“…17 Their view of themselves as refugees was expressed through a slightly different frame: that of the daily grind, the struggle to get by, the conditions of precarity that structure so many people's lives across the globe (Muehlebach, 2013;Molé, 2010;Allison, 2013). Abu Firas, a 42 year-old father of four, was both frustrated and often funny as he talked about his feelings about Wihdat:…”

Section: The Camp As An Emotional Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

What is a camp? Legitimate refugee lives in spaces of long-term displacement

Feldman

2015

Geoforum

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“…Numerous social-scientific studies now track structural transformations in terms of reconfigurations of states, markets and governance and attend to the ramifications in terms of precariousness (see Wacquant 2012;Biehl 2013;Muehlebach 2013) and '(in)securitisation'(see Bigo 2002). Thus, there is a growing interest in ontological (in)security.…”

Section: Ont Ological (In)securit Ymentioning

confidence: 99%