Demands of the Day: On the Logic of Anthropological Inquiry

Paul Rabinow · Anthony Stavrianakis

May 2013 · University of Chicago Press

About this ebook

Demands of the Day asks about the logical standards and forms that should guide ethical and experimental anthropology in the twenty-first century. Anthropologists Paul Rabinow and Anthony Stavrianakis do so by taking up Max Weber’s notion of the “demands of the day.” Just as the demand of the day for anthropology decades ago consisted of thinking about fieldwork, today, they argue, the demand is to examine what happens after, how the experiences of fieldwork are gathered, curated, narrated, and ultimately made available for an anthropological practice that moves beyond mere ethnographic description. Rabinow and Stavrianakis draw on experiences from an innovative set of anthropological experiments that investigated how and whether the human and biological sciences could be brought into a mutually enriching relationship. Conceptualizing the anthropological and philosophic ramifications of these inquiries, they offer a bold challenge to contemporary anthropology to undertake a more rigorous examination of its own practices, blind spots, and capacities, in order to meet the demands of our day.

About the author

Paul Rabinow is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author or coauthor of many books, most recently The Accompaniment and Designing Human Practices, both published by the University of Chicago Press. Anthony Stavrianakis received his PhD in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley.