I’ve just had a new paper out in Anthropological Theory — this is behind a paywall, I’ll make a post-print version available through this website soon for those who don’t have access to the journal through an academic library. The paper is titled ‘Cultures of ignorance’. In a…
This is a cross-post from ethics.CRASSH. Felicitas Becker on Islamic reformism and Sufi traditionalism in Tanzania I’ve just read two fascinating papers by Felicitas Becker on moral conflict in East Africa. Both papers describe the relationship between Islamist reformers and Sufi-influenced traditionalists in rural Tanzania. Broadly speaking, the…
I’ve launched a new website as part of my current project at CRASSH. It’s called ethics.CRASSH and at the moment it’s covering the Speaking Ethically Across Borders Project, which has been running as a reading group this year. Several of the participants have already posted commentaries…
Here’s another video on cosmopolitanism, this one by Kwame Appiah, who has written on the topic: Kwame Anthony Appiah in Examined Life – YouTube.…
Here’s an interesting interview with Stuart Hall, in which he speaks about cosmopolitanism and rootedness — relevant to the previous post: http://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1119965 Pnina Werbner interviewing — I’ve transcribed the most relevant bit below. 23.30 PW: Can you be a cosmopolitan if you…
Tuesday saw the first of a series of reading groups that I’m organizing at CRASSH on the subject of ethical conversations across borders. There will be four sessions this term, each dealing with a different theme, taking in readings from anthropology, sociology, philosophy and history. The first session, on…
I am reading Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (1981), and I’ve just come across a passage that is related to my recent argument about the problems of the use of the concept of neoliberalism in anthropology. Part of my argument was that academic advocates…
Thanks to Theo Kyriakides (@Theo_Kyriakides), who was present at the GDAT debate on neoliberalism for alerting me to a post by Kathleen Fitzpatrick of Pomona College. She writes, I have come to despise the term “neoliberal,” to the extent that I’d really like to see it stricken from…