Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute· 2013Q1
Beyond the suffering subject: toward an anthropology of the good
- 1,210citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
Anthropology shifted focus from 'other' societies to the 'suffering subject' in the 1980s, potentially losing critical capacities. The paper proposes a new direction: an 'anthropology of the good' to regain critical force without past weaknesses.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Anthropology shifted focus from 'other' societies to the 'suffering subject' in the 1980s.
- This shift may have led to a loss of critical capacities present in earlier anthropological work.
- A new theoretical direction, an 'anthropology of the good,' is proposed.
- This new direction aims to regain critical force without repeating past weaknesses.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
In the 1980s, anthropology set aside a focus on societies defined as radically ‘other’ to the anthropologists' own. There was little consensus at the time, however, about who might replace the other as the primary object of anthropological attention. In important respects, I argue, its replacement has been the suffering subject. Tracing this change, I consider how it addressed key problems of the anthropology of the other, but I also suggest that some strengths of earlier work – particularly some of its unique critical capacities – were lost in the transition. The conclusion considers how recent trends in anthropology might coalesce in a further shift, this one toward an anthropology of the good capable of recovering some of the critical force of an earlier anthropology without taking on its weaknesses.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Anthropology
AnthropologySocial Sciences