In der Übersicht
With a few notable exceptions, the study of “uncertainty” has been a neglected domain of anthropological study. Most scientific traditions have aimed at understanding how “things appear to operate”, and have thus less focused their attention on situation or conditions in which actors have no reference at hand to allow for social life to endure. Drawing from various disciplines of the social sciences and humanities, we will aim at defining uncertainty in anthropological terms and discuss how and why such situations are significant for social reproduction and transformation to occur. Through the analysis of various case studies, ranging from Melanesian sorcery accusations to western forms of social resistance, we will analyse the means and modes through which actors produce belonging to account for uncertainties and how uncertainty studies can be deployed as a heuristic device for the development of pragmatic anthropology.
