Mistrust: Ethnographic Approximations

by Florian Mühlfried (Editor)

Overview

Scholars have long seen trust as a foundational social good. We therefore have ample studies on building trust in free markets, on cultivating trust in the state, and on rebuilding trust through civil society. The contributors to this volume, instead, take a step back. They ask: Can mistrust ever be more than the flip side of trust, more than the sign of an absence or failure? By looking ethnographically at what a variety of actors actually do when they express mistrust, this volume offers a richly empirical trove of the social life of mistrust across a range of settings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783837639230
Publication date:	02/27/2018
Series:	Culture and Social Practice
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.86(h) x (d)

About the Author

Florian Mühlfried is a social anthropologist in the Caucasus Studies Program at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena. His research interests include the state, religion, ritual, (not-)sharing and feasting.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter 1
Table of Contents 5
Introduction 7
Trusting the Math and Mistrusting Humans 23
How Not to Fall in Love 49
When Stories Seem Fake 71
Intervention 93
Mis(sing) Trust for Surviving 105
Mistrust Durgaing the Ebola Epidemic in Guinea 129
Mistrusting as a Mode of Engagement in Mediation 147
Intervention 169
Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg 179
Suspicion and Mistrust in Neighbour Relations 201
Afterword 219
Acknowledgments 225
Authors 227