Abstract
In his article, “The Endurance of Critique” Didier Fassin (Anthropological Theory 17:1 4–29) affirms that critique, through its “multiple forms, is inherent to the anthropological project,” and is urgently needed in these troubled and dangerous times. Fassin argues “against “the unbearable lightness of being that paradoxically characterizes certain forms of alleged radicalism as well as certain retreats in an ivory tower,” and endeavors “to give some weight to critique, as I believe it does matter for the times” in which we live.
Anthropological Theory is calling for a global debate on the meaning and significance of critique in anthropology. In the following pages of this issue, we welcome the first three responses to Fassin’s article. Tania Li’s contribution elaborates on the possibility of critique to (slowly) foster vocabularies which connect social groups to social movements. Whereas Lori Allen takes a more historical approach to the effect of ethnographic critique – its creation and its dissipation – learning from the history of Palestinian civil society. Martin Holbraad calls us up for taking the risk of exposing our basic intuitions about what can count as critique to ‘alternative critiques' as expressed in the contemporary currency of ‘fake news’, ‘alternative facts’, or the ‘post-factual’.
We continue to encourage further interventions that speak to the role of theory within critical engagements in the ongoing challenges of social transformation and we will publish these in forthcoming issues of AT.