The Anthropology of Ignorance [electronic resource] : An Ethnographic Approach /
High, C.editor.
Kelly, A.editor.
Mair, J.editor.
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.
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; List of Tables and Figures; Acknowledgments; Chapter 1 Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object; Chapter 2 Sarax and the City: Almsgiving and Anonymous Objects in Dakar, Senegal; Chapter 3 Discourses of the Coming: Ignorance, Forgetting, and Prolepsis in Japanese Life-Historiography; Chapter 4 Evoking Ignorance: Abstraction and Anonymity in Social Networking's Ideals of Reciprocity; Chapter 5 Between Knowing and Being: Ignorance in Anthropology and Amazonian Shamanism
Chapter 6 "I Don't Know Why He Did It. It Happened by Itself": Causality and Suicide in Northwest GreenlandChapter 7 Inhabiting the Temporary: Patience and Uncertainty among Urban Squatters in Buenos Aires; Chapter 8 "Fertility. Freedom. Finally.": Cultivating Hope in the Face of Uncertain Futures among Egg-Freezing Women; Notes on Contributors; Index
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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.
Anthropology.
Ethnology.
Sociology.
Culture—Study and teaching.
Culture.
Personality.
Social psychology.
Anthropology.
Cultural Anthropology.
Sociology, general.
Regional and Cultural Studies.
Sociology of Culture.
Personality and Social Psychology.