Causality, ethics, and the near future

Robbins, Joel

doi:10.1525/ae.2007.34.3.433

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Within this anthropology of temporality, political‐economic crisis is seen to be defined by temporal paralysis and the ‘abeyance’ of human agency (Miyazaki : 430). A common thread runs through this work: the chronic impermanence that characterizes life under neoliberal capitalism for the so‐called ‘bottom billion’ has created a bipolar temporal frame suspending people between everyday survivalism and the far horizons of a millenarian future; the latter a psychological palliative to the former (Allison & Piot ; Comaroff & Comaroff ; Guyer ; Piot ; Robbins ). More specifically, three decades of failed experiments in neoliberal development paradigms have robbed Africa's youth of the capacity to project onto a tangible future.…”

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confidence: 99%

Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid

Dolan

Rajak

2018

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Celebrated as creative, flexible catalysts of inclusive capitalism, urban youth are central to bottom‐of‐the‐pyramid (BoP) models of development, which set out to repurpose the jobless as entrepreneurs in the making. We explore the multiple (at times conflicting) temporalities – the practices, technologies, and representations of time – which figure in a BoP initiative offering entrepreneurial opportunities to unemployed youth in Nairobi's slums: from the invocation of clock‐time discipline to the professional time of entrepreneurial subjectivities and the enchantments of the not‐yet. But the appeal of BoP, we suggest, does not turn either on the here‐and‐now of survival or on an impossible pipe dream of prosperity, but rather resides firmly in the medium term: a foreseeable future of modest desires, which nonetheless remain tantalizingly just out of reach for most. By examining how these temporal conflicts play out in attempts to fashion a cadre of self‐willed, aspiring entrepreneurs, we reveal the limits to entrepreneurial agency, and the contradictions inherent in the mission of (self‐)empowerment through enterprise upon which the ideology of inclusive markets is built.

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confidence: 99%

Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid

Dolan

Rajak

2018

Royal Anthropological Inst

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“…And yet, like Joel Robbins () and Ruth Marshall (), I want to avoid a strictly materialist explanation for the sisters’ lack of interest in midrange planning, such as that posited by Bourdieu (), which would view these alternative temporalities as simply the result of economic circumstance. Rather, by considering the decidedly noneconomic reasons for taking up this particular ethico‐temporal mode, we not only begin to understand why the sisters of Mercy House approach their work in the way they do and how this approach affects their relationship to the wider aid community but we are also reminded of the importance of avoiding reductionist analytics that would force us to see their choices as resulting solely from their material circumstances or their Catholic theology.…”

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confidence: 99%

Let us make God our banker: Ethics, temporality, and agency in a Ugandan charity home

Scherz

2013

American Ethnologist

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Faith in divine intervention affects the ethical and temporal orientations of a community of East African nuns managing a charity home in Central Uganda and leads them to make programmatic decisions that put them at odds with mainstream approaches in development and humanitarianism. By demonstrating that their resistance to long-term planning and audit practices is not the product of material privation or ignorance but, rather, a consciously developed orientation toward time and agency, I bring together concerns from the anthropology of religion and the anthropology of development. Further, by seeking to explain how the sisters come to hold their particular beliefs, I move beyond the elucidation of doctrine to show how mundane forms of practice are central to the formation of ethical subjectivity. [Africa, agency, Christianity, charity, ethics, temporality] Teresa and a ducat can do nothing: God, Teresa and a ducat can do everything. Let us do everything we can, but let us make God our banker.-Saint Teresa of Avila, 16th-century Spanish mystic

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“…As concerns about the end times waned among post‐WWII evangelicals, their ideas about time shifted as they drew on other influences and concerns related to Cold War geopolitics, emerging organizational management models, and paradigms of humanitarian assistance. Before delving into the World Vision data, a conversation between Guyer (2007), Robbins (2007a, 2007b, 2014), and Bialecki (2009) can help us contextualize this shift in broader processes of change among Americans and among evangelical Christians in particular.…”

Section: Passion Compassion and Time In Evangelical Humanitarianismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time, (Com)passion, and Ethical Self‐formation in Evangelical Humanitarianism

Henquinet¹

2020

Journal of Religious Ethics

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This article examines narratives, images, and stories that give insight to everyday experimentation and ethical self‐formation. I use the case of World Vision and its early leaders to unpack genealogies of American evangelical humanitarianism. Rather than seeking to identify American evangelicalism’s normative ethical stance, I aim to expand the discussion in anthropology of ethics on ethical self‐formation through examining the tensions, reflections, and processes of becoming among evangelical humanitarians. In doing so, I examine two focal areas of ethical self‐formation among early World Vision leaders. The first is oscillation between and mixing of passion and compassion frameworks in the American evangelical imagination. Second, I identify a range of temporal frames that evangelicals draw on to make sense of and formulate ethical responses to human needs encountered abroad.

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Causality, ethics, and the near future

Cited by 13 publications

References 6 publications

Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid

Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid

Let us make God our banker: Ethics, temporality, and agency in a Ugandan charity home

Time, (Com)passion, and Ethical Self‐formation in Evangelical Humanitarianism

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