Paper Short Abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on queerness, play, and ethical uncertainty in Amman, Jordan, this paper discusses the potentials and pitfalls of allowing for more space for play and for an ethics of indifference (Davé 2023) in relations and in anthropological practice.

Paper Abstract:

There are times when spaces for playfulness and ethical uncertainty seem highly productive and plentiful in Amman, Jordan, where I have conducted fieldwork and spent time since 2015. Young artists and activists play around with spaces that are highly securitized and surveilled, showing the possibilities of an indifference to the powers that be. There are times, too, when both one’s own scholarly practice and conventions, as well as political and moral norms in the field, seem to close down such spaces for playfulness. Inspired by Naisargi Davé’s indifference as ethical praxis (2023) I reflect on the humanist urge to play in contexts where both one’s own creativity and the creativity of others, seem under attack by another humanist urge: namely to differentiate oneself from the other, and thus to create spaces where playful indifference is not allowed. This both in a particular (interlocutor/anthropologist in fieldwork in Amman) and a general (categorization, stigmatization, marginalization of particular groups, functions or individuals) sense.