Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object

Mair, Jonathan; Kelly, Ann H.; High, Casey

doi:10.1057/9781137033123_1

Cited by 49 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…As scholars have argued, rather than being defined by its absence, ignorance is part of the social process of the construction of knowledge. It is also often used as a tool for moral evaluations and thus plays an important role in forming the relations of power (Chua ; Dilley : S182‐3; Gershon ; Gershon & Raj ; Mair, Kelly & High ). In Alexandrov's case, ignorance was used to guard his own contributory expertise.…”

Section: The Cycle Of Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Uneasy translations: vernacularizing demography for post‐Soviet statecraft

Leykin

2019

Royal Anthropological Inst

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The article explores a series of professional development seminars for state bureaucrats in the context of the moral panic over Russia's 'demographic crisis'. It follows the vernacularization of social knowledge for state bureaucrats -a central practice that marks these pedagogical engagements. The article explores this practice's potentialities and limitations for effectively communicating social knowledge to administrative audiences. It grounds itself in the theoretical discussions of expertise and demonstrates how vernacularizing social knowledge for post-Soviet statecraft shapes the social and political meanings of Russia's demographic crisis, investing state policies and discourses with authority.

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Section: The Cycle Of Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Uneasy translations: vernacularizing demography for post‐Soviet statecraft

Leykin

2019

Royal Anthropological Inst

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“…Corporate and government reports about underground water describe many kinds of knowledge about the environment, but a striking feature is that they appear to manage forms of ignorance (the authority's and company's own, as well as others’) about key aspects of the environment and extraction's impact. Here, ignorance refers less to a state, such as an absence of knowledge, than to the ways in which it is produced by ‘specific practices with effects that are distinct from the effects of the lack of knowledge to which the ignorance in question corresponds’ (Mair, High & Kelly : 3). The effects of ignorance in this sense are unknowing in the midst of voluminous information production.…”

Section: Groundwater's Political Capacity and The Agency Of Powerful mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustaining ignorance: the uncertainties of groundwater and its extraction in the Salar de Atacama, northern Chile

Babidge

2018

Royal Anthropological Inst

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The extraction of groundwater and the regulation of its use in many parts of the world have been found to present a particular kind of problem. A contest involving mining companies, an ‘impacted’ community, and the state arising from groundwater and its extraction in the Salar de Atacama, northern Chile, provides a stark example. What marks the case are the many uncertainties about underground water and the quantities extracted. This article argues that uncertainty characterizes conditions of ‘late industrialism’ and that corporate practice that sustains ignorance is a form of powerful agency that in turn maintains the conditions for potentially harmful extractive activity. Critically engaging with the proposition that water may act in the relational process of unknowing contributes to the analysis of how corporate practice may sustain ignorance. This also suggests that alternative political responses to uncertainty are possible.

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“…Throughout anthropological writings, the idea of a bounded culture demarcated by shared knowledge has been rethought as it has become apparent that in all domains, access to knowledge and information is unequal (Mair et al. ). A restriction of knowledge, for example, is observable in the production of global commodities and the “non‐transfer” of knowledge about those commodities (Schiebinger ).…”

Section: Producing Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…What might we learn by focusing on an absence or a restriction of information, that is, by studying the production of ignorance or "agnotology" (Proctor 2008;Proctor and Schiebinger 2008)? Throughout anthropological writings, the idea of a bounded culture demarcated by shared knowledge has been rethought as it has become apparent that in all domains, access to knowledge and information is unequal (Mair et al 2012). A restriction of knowledge, for example, is observable in the production of global commodities and the "non-transfer" of knowledge about those commodities (Schiebinger 2009).…”

Section: Producing Ignorancementioning

confidence: 99%

Perfume and Planes: Ignorance and Imagination in Haiti's Vetiver Oil Industry

Freeman

2018

J Latin Amer Carib Anth

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Rezime Nan atik sa a, nou analize pwodiksyon lwil vetivè ak de lòt fenomèn nan sidwès Dayiti: mank enfòmasyon sou endistri vetivè a, ak imajinè ki fèt sou sa endistri a pwodwi. Plantè vetivè konn kiltive zèb la pou yo vann rasin nan izin ki pwodwi lwil esansyèl pou pafen ak savon. Epoutan, anpil kiltivatè vetivè sa yo pa konnen kijan moun sèvi ak lwil la. Genyen kiltivatè ki menm kwe lwil vetivè fè avyon vole, men se pa vre. Nan atik sa a, nou konstate se fason pwodiksyon an fèt ki vin bay yon mank denfómasyon ak yon imajinè komodite. Genyen moun ki konprann vetivè kòm yon komodite ekspòtasyon ki ta kapab ede moun ki nan mizè. Men nou bay agiman si nou fikse plis sou aspè non‐materyèl, n a wè pi klè yon endistri ki ekstraktif e kache. [agrikilti, klas, ekonomi ekstraktif, imaginè, Ayiti, travay, mache, pafen, vetivè]

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Introduction: Making Ignorance an Ethnographic Object

Cited by 49 publications

References 48 publications

Uneasy translations: vernacularizing demography for post‐Soviet statecraft

Uneasy translations: vernacularizing demography for post‐Soviet statecraft

Sustaining ignorance: the uncertainties of groundwater and its extraction in the Salar de Atacama, northern Chile

Perfume and Planes: Ignorance and Imagination in Haiti's Vetiver Oil Industry

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