Part of my argument in the recent neoliberalism debate was that, evidence of discontent about any aspect, be it ever so narrow, of what have been identified as neoliberal transformations is taken, without further justification, as a rejection of...
On Saturday I had the pleasure of taking part in GDAT, an annual debate on anthropological theory hosted by Manchester University. GDAT, the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory, was started in the late 80s by Tim Ingold, and has been...
Dear Michael, Thanks again for taking the time to engage with me earlier. Sorry that this is a bit of a long reply… In your comment you note: the fundamental questions remains: Why are only “religious” communities able to augment this in-group...
William Robertson Smith (source: Wikipedia) This is a reply to Martin Michael Blume’s comment to my previous post, which was itself was a comment on his blog on www.scilogs.com. Martin Michael — Thanks for the links (reproduced below) and for...
The explanatory power of evolutionary theory is clear. However, these days, people seem to rush to evolutionary explanations for all sorts of real and perceived human behaviours. The danger of doing this is that in going straight to the question...
Here’a another exercise in the anthropology of ignorance, this time focused on ignorance in education — a special issue of Critical Studies in Education from 2009. The introduction, by Neriko Musha Doerr explains: While resonating with Bourdieu’s...
I’ve just come across the work of Joanne Gaudet, a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa who has been working on issues of ignorance and the productivity of ignorance from a sociological — and especially sociology of science — point of view....
Paul Stoller has a post on the Huffington Post on education, ignorance and politics. Some of what he has to say relates to policies that aim to constrain the acquisition of knowledge. Here’s one example I find particularly astounding, not because...
Jenny Diggins (Sussex) and I have just issued the following call for papers for a panel on the anthropology of ignorance, to be held at the IUAES Congress in Manchester next summer. Feel free to get in touch if you’re considering submitting a...
The China History Podcast comes all the way from sunny Claremont, California, courtesy of Laszlo Montgomery, and is highly recommended. I’ve been listening to it on and off since last summer and have learnt a lot from it. It’s a great...