Detachment

'By now detachment has been thoroughly dethroned as a general ideal for modern subjects. This makes it possible for the authors assembled in this compelling volume to present subtle, detailed explorations of practices of detachment in different contexts -from pig farming in Britain to monastery life in Tibet. Like attaching, detaching, too, emerges as an art that is situationally worthwhile, necessary, or unavoidable. Start reading and - can I say this? - you will be hooked.'

Annemarie Mol, Professor of Anthropology of the Body at the University of Amsterdam.


'This book quite brilliantly exposes the imperative of connection that drives so much of contemporary theory. Taking their distance from this imperative, the contributors develop a sophisticated and insightful proposal for the potentiality of detachment or disconnection as an ethical and epistemic practice. The proposal is at once measured and provocative; social scientists of all kinds will be stirred by Detachment.'
Alain Pottage, Professor of Law, London School of Economics

‘The value of these essays lies in their empirical detail – reminding us that our discursive habit of hypostatizing key terms seldom illuminates, but tends to blind us to the dynamic processes and ever-changing experiences of social existence, which define, after all, the original raisons d’ˆetre of anthropological inquiry.’
Michael D. Jackson Harvard Divinity School, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute