Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the perils and possibilities of writing new forms of anthropological non-fiction. It suggests that questions of responsibility are central not only to how and for whom we write but also for how we engage with our readers in the aftermath.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologists, like other academics, are expected to prove their impact on the world beyond academia whilst at the same time satisfying the expectations of the discipline. One way of bridging these contradictory demands is through developing new forms of anthropological non-fiction which pay less attention to satisfying scholarly conventions and more attention to the art of writing and politics of readability. But in making anthropological writing more widely accessible, we also risk losing control of the subtlety of the arguments we try to make. In this paper I ask what happens when anthropological writing enters into new spaces of circulation where it risks becoming transformed, re-appropriated and manipulated in unexpected ways. Tracing the complicated afterlives of the book Entanglement: The Secret Lives of Hair, I explore the perils and possibilities of such writing as it enters the volatile echo chambers of social media and becomes repurposed by different groups to different ends. I ask how responsible are we as anthropologists and authors for the afterlives of the books we write? I explore how questions of responsibility are central not only to how and for whom we write but also for how we engage with our readers in the aftermath.