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Paper short abstract

This paper proposes three methodological implications on attending to stakes : 1) attention to the politico-economic gravity of social meaningfulness; 2) a “post-gnostic” mode of inquiry, rather than diagnosis and prognosis; and 3) a radical commitment to engagement as a methodological imperative.

Paper long abstract

This paper investigates the methodological implications of attending to stakes in social scientific inquiry. Stakes point to the weight behind social action: the concerns, costs, labor, effort, time, repetition, sacrifice, defense, and struggle. They foreground a dimension of moral economy that is often overlooked in social science yet remains deeply at stake in grassroots social worlds. How might social inquiry take stakes seriously? This paper proposes three methodological implications: first, attention to the density and gravity of social meaningfulness; second, a “post-gnostic” mode of questioning that departs from diagnostic and prognostic frameworks; and third, a radical commitment to engagement as a methodological imperative. The analysis draws on empirical cases from my fieldwork on grassroots Confucianism and self-taught examination in China, as well as on critical historical studies of Clifford Geertz and feminist economic anthropology.