The Anthropology of Ignorance

The question of ignorance occupies a central place in anthropological theory and practice. This volume argues that the concept of ignorance has largely been pursued as the opposite of knowledge or even its obverse. Though they cover wide empirical ground - from clients of a fertility treatment center in New York to families grappling with suicide in Greenland - contributors share a commitment to understanding the concept as a productive, social practice. Ultimately, The Anthropology of Ignorance asks whether an academic commitment to knowledge can be squared with lived significance of ignorance and how taking it seriously might alter anthropological research practices.

"The Anthropology of Ignorance: An Ethnographic Approach brings an interesting balance of theory , conceptualisation, and case studies, mainly for scholars and not for undergraduates. As a matter of fact, many future essay s and books could be written thanks to the doors this book just opened." - European Journal of American Studies

Auteur
Janne Flora (Cambridge) P.W.Geissler (LSHTM) Gretchen Pfeil (Chicago) Shunsuke Nozawa (Chicago) David S. Leitner (Cambridge) Valeria Procupez (John Hopkins) Tiffany Romain (Stanford).

Contenu
Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object; J. Mair, A. Kelly & C .High Sarax and the City: Almsgiving and Anonymous Objects in Dakar, Senegal; G. Pfeil Discourses of the Coming: Ignorance, Forgetting, and Prolepsis in Japanese Life-Historiography; S. Nozawa Evoking Ignorance: Abstraction and Anonymity in Social Networking's Ideals of Reciprocity; D. Leitner Between Knowing and Being: Ignorance in Anthropology and Amazonian Shamanism; C. High 'I Don't Know Why He Did It. It Happened by Itself': Causality and Suicide in Northwest Greenland; J. Flora Inhabiting the Temporary: Patience and Uncertainty among Urban Squatters in Buenos Aires; V. Procupez 'Fertility. Freedom. Finally.': Cultivating Hope in the Face of Uncertain Futures among Egg-Freezing Women; T. Romain