Modes of Uncertainty
Anthropological Cases
1st Edition
Published on 31. May 2024
258 pages
978-0-226-25724-2 (ISBN)
Description
Modes of Uncertainty offers groundbreaking ways of thinking about danger, risk, and uncertainty from an analytical and anthropological perspective. Our world, the contributors show, is increasingly populated by forms, practices, and events whose uncertainty cannot be reduced to risk-and thus it is vital to distinguish between the two. Drawing the lines between them, they argue that the study of uncertainty should not focus solely on the appearance of new risks and dangers-which no doubt abound-but also on how uncertainty itself should be defined, and what the implications might be for policy and government.
Organizing contributions from various anthropological subfields-including economics, business, security, humanitarianism, health, and environment-Limor Samimian-Darash and Paul Rabinow offer new tools with which to consider uncertainty, its management, and the differing modes of subjectivity appropriate to it. Taking up policies and experiences as objects of research and analysis, the essays here seek a rigorous inquiry into a sound conceptualization of uncertainty in order to better confront contemporary problems. Ultimately, they open the way for a participatory anthropology that asks crucial questions about our contemporary state.
Organizing contributions from various anthropological subfields-including economics, business, security, humanitarianism, health, and environment-Limor Samimian-Darash and Paul Rabinow offer new tools with which to consider uncertainty, its management, and the differing modes of subjectivity appropriate to it. Taking up policies and experiences as objects of research and analysis, the essays here seek a rigorous inquiry into a sound conceptualization of uncertainty in order to better confront contemporary problems. Ultimately, they open the way for a participatory anthropology that asks crucial questions about our contemporary state.
All prices
More details
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2015
University of Chicago Press
€34.66
Shipment within 10-20 days
Book
07/2015
University of Chicago Press
€107.70
Shipment within 10-20 days
Persons
Limor Samimian-Darash is assistant professor at the Federman School of Public Policy and Government at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Paul Rabinow is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of many books, including, most recently,
Designs on the Contemporary,
Demands of the Day, and
Designing Human Practices, all published by the University of Chicago Press.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- Introduction by Limor Samimian-Darash and Paul Rabinow
- Economics and Entrepreneurialism
- One. Uncertainty Makes Us Free: Insurance and Liberal Rationality - Pat O'Malley
- Two. The "Cool" Organization Man: Incorporating Uncertainty from Jazz Music into the Business World - Eitan Wilf
- Three. The Gaming of Chance: Online Poker Software and the Potentialization of Uncertainty - Natasha Dow Schull
- Security and Humanitarianism
- Four. Policing Uncertainty: On Suspicious Activity Reporting - Meg Stalcup
- Five. Guantánamo's Catch-22: The Uncertain Interrogation Subject - Rebecca Lemov
- Six. Global Humanitarian Interventions: Managing Uncertain Trajectories of Cambodian Mental Health - Carol A. Kidron
- Seven. The Malicious and the Uncertain: Biosecurity, Self-Justification, and the Arts of Living - Gaymon Bennett
- Environment and Health
- Eight. What Is a Horizon? Navigating Thresholds in Climate Change Uncertainty - Adriana Petryna
- Nine. Sentinel Devices: Managing Uncertainty in Species Barrier Zones - Frederick Keck
- Ten. Spaces of Uncertainty: Governing Urban Environmental Hazards - Austin Zeiderman
- Afterword by Paul Rabinow and Limor Samimian-Darash
- Notes
- References
- List of Contributors
- Index
