Friction – CeMoRe Reading Group

l

Published by Harriet Phipps

Monday, December 12th, 2016

Mobilities Reading Group 

Join us for a discussion this Wed Dec 14, 4-5pm (Mobilities Lab). Join in person or via skype. 
 
Reading
Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection by Anna Tsing. (Just the introduction!)

Abstract

Challenging the widespread view that globalization invariably signifies a “clash” of cultures, anthropologist Anna Tsing here develops friction in its place as a metaphor for the diverse and conflicting social interactions that make up our contemporary world. She focuses on one particular “zone of awkward engagement”–the rainforests of Indonesia–where in the 1980s and the 1990s capitalist interests increasingly reshaped the landscape not so much through corporate design as through awkward chains of legal and illegal entrepreneurs that wrested the land from previous claimants, creating resources for distant markets. Providing a portfolio of methods to study global interconnections, Tsing shows how curious and creative cultural differences are in the grip of worldly encounter, and how much is overlooked in contemporary theories of the global.

Review

Friction is an original, nuanced, and elegant work of ethnography and a significant contribution to the areas of globalization; environment and natural resource wars; the politics of indigenous peoples, NGOs, and development; and the sociology of expert versus local knowledge.”–Michael Goldman, American Journal of Sociology

You may also like…

Mobilities Research 20 Years On

Mobilities Research 20 Years On

This post features recordings of the talks from the morning session of CeMoRe’s 20th anniversary colloquium: “Reflecting on 20 Years of Mobilities Research”