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- Convenors:
-
Matthew Carey
(University of Copenhagen)
Ismaël Moya (CNRS X)
Ida Hartmann (University of Copenhagen)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Lanyon Building (LAN), 01/002 CR & CC
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Ideals of sincerity and authenticity preach an alignment between one's inner self and one's outward actions or speech. This panel explores social contexts that operate on different principles, either by focusing exclusively on surface appearances or by promoting different forms of alignment.
Long Abstract:
In his magnum opus, published in 1972, Lionel Trilling diagnosed a fundamental transformation in Western societies, away from a concern with sincerity (then seen as a slightly passé concept) and towards a focus on radical authenticity. Fast-forward thirty years and authenticity has, in turn, come in for its share of critique, while sincerity finds renewed vigour both in the discipline of anthropology (Keane 1997; Haeri 2017) and in wider societal efforts to challenge fake news and "bullshit" (Frankfurter 2005), and promote transparency. What both sincerity and authenticity share, however, is a fundamental commitment to the idea that, to borrow the words of Shakespeare's Iago, one's "outward action [should] demonstrate the native act and figure of the heart in complement extern". In a nutshell, our speech and actions should be a faithful representation of our inner selves.
This moral dictum contrasts sharply with ideology and practice in many other cultural or geographic contexts, in which what matters socially is not what one is, thinks or even actually does, but what one appears (to others) to do or say. Social labour (language, action etc.) is about the management of surface appearances, in the eyes of others, that do not necessarily (and in certain cases, should not) conform to some putative inner reality - these appearances may be about sexuality, propriety, wealth, status, piety, etc. We invite papers that explore such alternative economies ethnographically and reflect on their implications for understandings of sincerity, authenticity, personhood and ethics.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 July, 2022, -Ward Keeler (University of Texas at Austin)
Paper short abstract:
Individuals participating in relationships that provide them, or hold them to, specified places worry little about their identity. When such arrangements falter, authenticity then comes to the fore so that free-floating individuals gain some measure of security.
Paper long abstract:
Hierarchical arrangements motivate exchange relations among unlike parties, to the supposed benefit of all. Individuals participating in relationships that provide them, or hold them to, specified places worry little about their identity. When such arrangements falter, individuals are freed from, and deprived of, such ties, a disorienting as much as an exciting development. Authenticity then comes to the fore so that free-floating individuals gain some sense of stability, even though the net of relations that had held them in place no longer does that job as effectively.
The frequently-cited contrast between socio-centric societies and those emphasizing individualism is better understood as a contrast between people who favor hierarchical relations and those who look upon such relations with suspicion. People of either persuasion are found in any given society, although the proportion varies, such that highly educated people familiar with egalitarian discourse tend to favor individual rights, whereas those committed to hierarchical values favor conservative arrangements. Conservatives understand authenticity, if they consider it at all, as keeping things as they have been. Progressives, more committed to the concept, understand it to mean that one can conduct oneself according to one’s own lights, favoring elements of one’s identity one chooses and ignoring those (such as gender, ethnicity, or whatever else) one wishes to discount. Being authentic then means remaining true to some consistent, unbending identity, taken on at will—altogether at odds with the flexible person alert to power and status differentials that hierarchical arrangements emphasize.
Georg Wolfmayr (Department of European Ethnology, University of Vienna) Susanna Azevedo (University of Vienna)
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the twofold subjectification of present-day competition formats that simultaneously promote an authentic and a competitive self, and shows that competitions are thus a particularly interesting example of the performance of the relationship between inner self and appearance.
Paper long abstract:
In the last decades much academic work has been done about how competition in different contexts affects the subjectivities of the competitors involved. This kind of subjectification includes the incorporation of competitive principles, the reinforcement of the traits of maximization, calculation and egoism, or the striving for competitiveness and competitive edge. Thus, these studies have examined how competition produces competitive subjects.
However, as many of these studies indicate, though do not elaborate, competition may not only produce one form of subjectivity but actually two. This twofold subjectification of competition is bound to the peculiar form of competitive formats, in which form and content of competition may diverge strongly. This is especially true for the many present-day competition formats that promote an authentic self, e.g., competitions in the artistic field, in media formats such as the subgenre of reality television called "reality competition," or on social media platforms such as Tinder or Instagram. While the content of these competitions calls for authentic subjects, the form demands competitive subjects. Thus, subjectification as a competitive subject does not somehow corrupt a pre-existing authentic subject, but competition produces both, a competitive subject and an authentic subject, which are subsequently in an unresolved tension and pose a dilemma for competitors. Competitions thus represent a particularly interesting example of the performance of the relationship between inner self and appearance.
In this paper I want to present qualitative empirical examples from the research project "SPACE - Spatial Competition and Economic Policies" for this twofold subjectification of competition.
Ida Hartmann (University of Copenhagen)
Paper short abstract:
Among some Turkish Sunni Muslims, sincerity (ihlas) means acting with the sole intention of pleasing God. Focused on acts of forgiveness, this paper reflects on the forms of personhood and ethics, but also on the sentiments of suspicion, emerging from performances of ihlas.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on fieldwork among religious Sunni Muslims in Turkey, this paper explores a notion of sincerity (ihlas) which stipulates carrying out all acts – from doing the dishes to performing the pilgrimage – with the intention of pleasing God. Set against the backdrop of dramatic political polarization in Turkey, the paper attends to how the notion of ihlas encourages and shapes attempts to forgive former friends, who have been turned into political adversaries by widening societal cleavages. It shows such attempts at forgiveness as driven, not so much by a desire to restore relations, but by an aspiration to please God. From a post/protestant perspective, which takes sincerity to mean the alignment of one’s inner self with one’s outer utterances, such acts of forgiveness appears halfhearted and insincere. Yet, from the perspective of ihlas, forgiving others for the sake of God is at the heart of what sincerity is all about. From this ethnographically informed perspective, the paper reflects upon the notions of personhood and ethics that emerges from such performances of ihlas, as well as on the suspicion it engenders in outside observers and wider society.
Geger Riyanto (Heidelberg University)
Paper short abstract:
By expanding on how mistrust is being expressed more for performative purposes in Parigi, a coastal Muslim village of North Seram, eastern Indonesia, I shall ruminate on the limit of our modern expectation of ideal relationship based on sincerity and transparency.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I wish to expand on the expressions of mistrust in Parigi, a coastal Muslim village of North Seram, eastern Indonesia. I shall show how Parigi villagers’ expressions of mistrust are performative rather than illustrative. Mistrust is commonly being addressed toward the generalized others (the other villagers, the Christians, the Chinese) while, noteworthily, it does not immediately affect one’s actual relationship with a particular person from the groups he mentioned. Such expressions of mistrust help to shape favorable atmospheres and narratives in conversations, allowing better engagements between interlocutors. While indeed my ethnographical reflection is critical toward the notion of mistrust as socially counterproductive, the main purpose of this paper is evaluative. As an outsider, I was constantly baffled by how Parigi villagers’ mistrust did not fit with how they engaged with the objects of their mistrust. Nevertheless, this was so because we require relationships to be grounded on sincerity and authenticity. In our modern worldview, selves are buffered. They are constituted not only of minds that are separate from the external world but also of several different layers. As such, in ideal relationships, the partaking subjects are expected to engage with the inner selves of the others as well as be transparent to each other. This is contrastive to what happens in Parigi wherein relationships are maintained through the theatrics of “superficial” mistrust.
Abdulla Majeed (University of Toronto)
Paper short abstract:
This paper proposes that approaching relations of fadl among Iraqi exiles in Jordan as a lens for examining migrant socialities can illuminate alternative modes of being in exile that come to be entangled with, or replicate, the state in a myriad of morally ambiguous ways.
Paper long abstract:
In Jordan, the language of fadl is ubiquitous and has many manifestations. Iraqis and Jordanians alike often bring up the fadl of Iraqis on Jordan’s economic and academic growth, citing not only large Iraqi investments in Jordan’s economy, but also Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime (1979-2003) provision of subsidized oil to Jordan and funded higher education for Jordanian nationals in Iraqi universities. In turn, Jordan’s fadl and grace for hosting Iraqis as “guests” of the Kingdom, especially post-2003, comes to be recognized and invoked regularly in public debate. With a future always postponed and deferred, drying up of one’s savings, and foreclosure of legal employment, fadl also becomes a valuable informal economic practice for many Iraqis in their everyday lives. Fadl then emerges as a complex logic that orders the present because of its indebtedness; one that is not constrained, eradicated, or resolved by the work of time. These multiple layers of fadl co-constitute what I refer to as “indebted citizens;” citizen-migrants who come to mutually recognize each other as such, and come to be interpellated by the state, through the indebtedness of fadl. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork with Iraqi exiles in Jordan, this paper traces how relations of fadl come to entangle the quotidian lives of ordinary citizen-migrants in webs of corruption, political ambitions, and citizenship claims in both Jordan and Iraq. Fadl, I propose in this paper, opens up a space of possibility for thinking about everyday statecraft in exile, benevolent governance, and the production of “good” citizenship.