240520 SE MM3 Anthropology of Ambiguity and Contradictions (2024W)

The concept of ambiguity – as context, state or feeling – is defined as possessing double meaning and double sense, as both resembling confusion and a position from which clarity might emerge. Gaining salience alongside now dominant expressions of ‘uncertainty’ in a world affected by climate change, (geo)political tension, economic instability, labour precarity and, viral contagion, the course considers the concept of ambiguity as a mode of expression, narration, cultural process, living condition, impediment or, indeed, as the grounds for launching critique. Likewise, contradictions are omnipresent and the identification of contradictions is usually accompanied by the imperative to resolve them. Contradictions can be ascribed to individual actions as well as to social formations. They extend to all areas of life: political orders, academic settings, religious practices and many more fields that are permeated by them. Without contradictions, there are no pluralities and no truths. Nevertheless, there is a long and powerful (especially European) tradition of problematizing and resolving contradictions and reducing them to logical incompatibility. This tradition of avoiding contradiction is countered by alternative concepts of thinking contradiction.

The course illuminates the analytical potential of ambiguity and contradiction as forms of sense-making in life and in ethnographic fieldwork. In doing so, the course also addresses concepts of (un)certainty, normality and, crisis as they are fundamental to an understanding of ambiguity and contradiction. Discussing ethnographic case-studies the course explores how anthropologists embrace the rich nature of ambiguity and contradiction as they are encountered in the field as well as in the making of ethnography.

By the end of the course, students will be able to identify the main themes and concepts in the anthropology of ambiguity and contradictions and have further acquired an understanding of how they are employed in ethnographic case-studies. Students will be able to use the concepts in their own research both analytically and methodologically.

The course consists of inputs by the lecturer on the course’s topic – relevant theoretical approaches and seminal texts which are elaborated in group discussions of both texts and concrete examples from media. Students are encouraged to deepen their knowledge of the course’s topic in group settings elaborating a particular aspect of the course based on theoretical literature and a concrete related case study.