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Dear all, Please find below the CfP for the ASA 2016 Panel (P34) 'The Temporal Politics of Expert Fictions: Subjunctive Arrangements in Organisational & Financial Settings', All the best and Happy New Year! http://www.nomadit.co.uk/asa/asa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4077 ASA 2016 Durham University, 4-7 July 2016 Convenors Taras Fedirko (Durham University) [log in to unmask] Paul Gilbert (University of Sussex) [log in to unmask] Short Abstract We invite ethnographic papers that explore how legal and financial practitioners work through the world in the subjunctive mode. How do experts account for fictions at the time of their making, and in the aftermath of their use? How are fictions made politically accountable (or not)? Long Abstract How and when do experts rely on 'fictions'? From price forecasts to risk analyses and the legal fictions that sustain corporate existence, we are interested in the fictions and 'as ifs' that animate economic and legal expertise. Recent work in anthropology (Alexander, Harvey & Knox, Riles) has presented fictional and subjunctive arrangements as key to the functioning of organisations. In work on financial markets, attention has been drawn to the manner in which market practitioners orient themselves to possible futures through models whose 'truth value' may nonetheless be under question (Beckert; Esposito; Tellman & Opitz). Similarly, this panel explores practices and forms of imagination enabled by fictional arrangements (such as the legal personality of corporations, or risk assessment models) which are valued for their technical, political and social effects, rather than epistemic validity. Going beyond advocacy for 'passionate attention to the performative dimension' of expertise as a corrective to 'the vain denunciation of its limits' (Callon & Latour 1997), we invite submissions from ethnographers who attend to the temporal politics implied by experts working in the subjunctive mode. How do experts account for fictions at the time of their making, and in the aftermath of their use? How are fictions made politically accountable (or not), rendered stable and useful? Does fictional knowledge decay with time, and what happens when subjunctive arrangements (do not) materialise? Finally, how do people chart spaces for actual and potential social action and relationships through fictions, whose temporalities often are open and unstable; and how can ethnographers capture this? ________________________________ Paul Robert Gilbert Department of Anthropology University of Sussex Falmer BN1 9SJ +44(0)7825161114 Profile at Sussex Anthropology: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/275733 Blog Editor at Rethinking Economics: http://www.rethinkeconomics.org/ Blog at Sociology Lens: http://thesocietypages.org/sociologylens/author/paulrgilbert/ Twitter: @paulrgilbert<https://twitter.com/paulrgilbert> ************************************************************* * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List * http://www.anthropologymatters.com * * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, * * online discussions, teaching and research resources * * and international contacts directory. * * To join this list or to look at the archived previous * * messages visit: * * http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML * * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all * * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: * * [log in to unmask] * * * * Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new * * CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com * * an international directory of anthropology researchers * * To unsubscribe: please log on to jiscmail.ac.uk, and * * go to the 'Subscriber's corner' page. * * ***************************************************************