Dear all,
We are looking for paper proposals to the following panel for the next
American Anthropological Association meeting (Vancouver, Nov 20-24): "Doing
nothing in an age of productivism: The moral and affective weight of
passivity." The call for papers is below.
Thanks,
Liz Fouksman and Darci Sprengel
Doing nothing in an age of productivism: The moral and affective weight of
passivity
Panel proposal for AAA 2019
Agency and productivity are broadly considered inherently interlinked,
desirable, and virtuous. This is evident not only in dominant economic
ideologies but also across the full spectrum of political (and academic)
narratives. In these accounts, periods of inactivity or idleness are often
treated as either contemptible or temporary lapses awaiting rectification
or aid.
For instance, narratives treating agency and productivity as virtuous are
manifest in conceptions of “hustle” and “entrepreneurship,” which stress
the agentive nature of the under- or precariously employed. This narrative
is also evident in dominant approaches to “the political.” Being “woke” and
giving “voice” are often assumed preferable to being “asleep” or “quiet.”
In other words, active political engagement, in the form of “resistance,”
protest, and discursive critique, are ascribed moral value as pillars of
any progressive or desirable society.
What happens when agency, productivity, and political action demonstrably
fail? What alternative worldviews, agencies, actions, imaginaries as well
as notions of self and time do such failures produce? In the aftermath of
the so-called Arab Spring, for instance, is widespread political exhaustion
and political refusal: mass mobilization and discursive critique largely
failed to institute democratic rule. This exhaustion and refusal thus
emerge from a longing for widespread political and social change at a time
when ordinary politics has proven ineffective. And in South Africa, despite
decades of (fitful) growth and a fixation with job creation by the
post-apartheid government, expanded unemployment rates remain around 37%.
There, a “proper job” (one that pays enough, and is stable enough) remains
a central aspiration even as its reality continues to recede, sparking
widespread worries and fears of passivity and “just-sitting” that shape the
imaginaries, fears and political demands of the long-term unemployed.
Built into moral narratives of “productivity” and “agency” as virtuous,
then, are its opposites. For “productivity” and “agency” to be virtuous,
there must also exist morally objectionable unproductivity and inaction.
Ascribing moral value to them depends on an inherent contradiction, since
certain types of action depend on inaction (for example when it comes to
climate change), the unemployment of some (“disposable” or “surplus”
populations), and stability (in the permanence of authoritarian regimes in
resource rich places, or of settler colonial states, for instance).
This panel interrogates the assumed positive value of and affective
attachments to productivity and agency, attachments found across the
spectrum of political and social life, including both among academics
themselves and their research subjects. The panel solicits papers that
approach idleness--as well as related concepts such as boredom, slowness,
quietness, stability, refusal, exhaustion, sitting, sleep, leisure, and so
on--as a critical lens through which to question normative assumptions
around the inherent worth of work, action, agency, and/or change.
Abstracts of 250 words should be sent by March 24th to:
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask]
--
E. Fouksman
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow
African Studies Centre, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies
Research Fellow, St. John's College
University of Oxford
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