Modes of uncertainty : anthropological cases / [edited by] Limor Samimian-Darash, Paul Rabinow.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Samimian-Darash, Limor, editor.

Rabinow, Paul, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Risk--Sociological aspects.

Risk.

Uncertainty--Social aspects.

Uncertainty.

Uncertainty--Economic aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, [2015]

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. Uncertainty Makes Us Free: Insurance and Liberal Rationality

CHAPTER TWO. The "Cool" Organization Man: Incorporating Uncertainty from Jazz Music into the Business World

CHAPTER THREE. The Gaming of Chance: Online Poker Software and the Potentialization of Uncertainty

CHAPTER FOUR. Policing Uncertainty: On Suspicious Activity Reporting

CHAPTER FIVE. Guantánamo's Catch- 22: The Uncertain Interrogation Subject

CHAPTER SIX. Global Humanitarian Interventions: Managing Uncertain Trajectories of Cambodian Mental Health

CHAPTER SEVEN. The Malicious and the Uncertain: Biosecurity, Self-Justification, and the Arts of Living

CHAPTER EIGHT. What Is a Horizon? Navigating Thresholds in Climate Change Uncertainty

CHAPTER NINE. Sentinel Devices: Managing Uncertainty in Species Barrier Zones

CHAPTER TEN. Spaces of Uncertainty: Governing Urban Environmental Hazards

AFTERWORD. Problematization and Uncertainty

NOTES

REFERENCES

CONTRIBUTORS

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780226257105

022625710X

OCLC:

910326344