number of data sets, a and b denote two different data sets, e quantifies aleatory uncertainty, E is the final decision, and P k are the personality traits of the k th member of the interpreting/decision-making group of human individuals. Note
Hendrik Paasche, Katja Paasche, and Peter Dietrich
Singularity and Uncertainty
Counter-Ethics of Gender and Sexuality in an Indian Dream Analysis
Sarah Pinto
Shahzia Sikander’s video installation Gopi Contagion made similar incursions for the next month, overtaking Times Square’s false skies with images of uncertainty – masses in loose coordination, strange stases of circular movement. In this and Sikander
In The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2017
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 30–46
Introduction
Risks, Ruptures and Uncertainties
Kirsten W. Endres and Maria Six-Hohenbalken
Asia's ongoing economic transformation has created a variety of unexpected ruptures, discontinuities and opportunities in the lives of local citizens across the region. The introduction to this special section of the journal frames the contributions that follow with a brief review of current scholarly discussions regarding the interrelated concepts of crisis, risk and uncertainty. It then provides an overview of the articles in this collection and highlights the ways in which they contribute to an understanding of local responses to, and strategies for coping with, risk and uncertainty as multidimensional, interwoven aspects of their daily lives, guided by social, economic and moral considerations.
In The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2014
- Article Type:
- Introduction
- Pages:
- 42–48
Living with Uncertainty
Indefinite Immigration Detention
Melanie Griffiths
Immigration detention is a central tenet of the British government’s response to immigration but remains under-theorised in academia. This article uses testimonies drawn from anthropological research conducted with detainees at an Immigration Removal Centre to examine lived experiences of immigration detention and explore the relationships between detainees and the British state. It suggests that despite being a space of extreme control (both in terms of legislation and daily practice), immigration detention is beset with uncertainty and confusion. Examples are given of chronic instability in relation to mobility, violent ‘incidents’, time frames and access to information. The article examines the repercussions of such instability on individuals and coping strategies employed. It argues that immigration detainees live in a context of continual crisis, in which profound uncertainty becomes normalised. This disorder should be understood as a technique of power, with governance through uncertainty constructing certain immigrants as expendable, transient and ultimately, deportable.
In Journal of Legal Anthropology
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2013
- Article Type:
- Research Article
- Pages:
- 263–286
The Workings of Uncertainty
Interrogating Cases on Refugees in Sweden
Karin Norman
In this essay, two cases are constructed in order to highlight the seemingly distinct yet intertwined problems of how realities shape the construction of a case and how the constitution of a field in time and space, as well as experiences of fieldwork, contribute to the formation of a case. The ethnographic material described concerns two different social realities of Kosovo Albanian refugees in Sweden and their confrontation with Swedish bureaucracy and the uncertainties to which this gives rise, both for the refugees and the anthropologist. A main aim is to explore the blurred line between the apt illustration and the extended case in relation to processes of bureaucratization and, in turn, the implications such processes have for the way in which the field is circumscribed and conceptualized.
Intimate Uncertainties
Ethnographic Explorations of Moral Economies across Europe
Sabine Strasser and Luisa Piart
For this special issue we are bringing together six ethnographic cases of intimate uncertainties that are situated within different regimes of reproduction, healthcare and borders in and beyond Europe. These ethnographic inquiries exemplify unprecedented settings of moral ir/responsibility shaping the intimate on different scales and in various sites of power (agencies, clinics, borderlands). These uncertainties in times of major transitions from old to new moral orders, from industrial to postindustrial, from welfare to austerity spark off a renewed debate on moral economy. The authors of these contributions all focus the theoretical lens of moral economy squarely onto the intimate.
In Anthropological Journal of European Cultures
- Published (Print):
- 01 Sep 2018
- Article Type:
- Introduction
- Pages:
- v–xv
Living an Uncertain Future
Temporality, Uncertainty, and Well-Being among Iraqi Refugees in Egypt
Nadia El-Shaarawi
While displacement has always involved the refiguring of space, scholars of forced migration have recently begun to consider how temporality might be crucial to an understanding of displacement. In this article, I consider the interplay of temporal and spatial uncertainty in the experience of exile for Iraqi refugees in metropolitan Cairo. By examining how Iraqis understand displacement as uncertain and how this uncertainty is a cause of significant distress, I show that an attunement to temporality can help us to understand refugees' experiences of displacement. Iraqi refugees spoke of exile in Cairo as 'living in transit'—a condition in which disjuncture between their expectations about exile and its realities contributed to an altered experience of time in which the future became particularly uncertain and life was experienced as unstable. One solution sought by refugees is resettlement, a process that often renders the future even more uncertain, at least in the short term.
Introduction
Flight and Exile—Uncertainty in the Context of Conflict-Induced Displacement
Cindy Horst and Katarzyna Grabska
This introduction addresses the ways in which flight and exile create particular types of uncertainty, including both radical and protracted, in people's lives. We argue that the concept of uncertainty, in its meaning of imperfect knowledge and the unpredictability of the future, is central to studies that theorize conflict-induced displacement, transit, and refugeeness. We start with an exploration of the spatial and temporal aspects of uncertainty in situations of displacement, and within that we discuss how uncertainty functions as a governing mechanism. We then analyze the ways that refugees and those internally displaced navigate situations of radical and protracted uncertainty. This article and those that follow in this special issue suggest that in our analysis of conflict-induced displacement, we must understand uncertainty rather than certainty as the norm.
Governing through Uncertainty
Experiences of Being a Refugee in Turkey as a Country for Temporary Asylum
Kristen Sarah Biehl
This article addresses the question of how to theorize the relation between uncertainty and governmentality with regard to displacement and its consequences. It explores the experiences of asylum seekers in Turkey and the bureaucratic processes of refugee status determination, local dispersal, and third country resettlement, illustrating two main points throughout. First, 'protracted uncertainty', characterized by indefinite waiting, limited knowledge, and unpredictable legal status, is a central element of the experience of being an asylum seeker in Turkey. Second, this uncertainty serves to demobilize, contain, and criminalize asylum seekers through the production of protracted uncertainty, which in turn is normalized as a necessity of bureaucracy and/or security. The article invites readers to question the governmentalities of asylum and border regimes that not only discipline refugees' everyday movements but also determine the uncertainty of 'refugeeness'.
“And When I Become a Man”
Translocal Coping with Precariousness and Uncertainty among Returnee Men in South Sudan
Katarzyna Grabska and Martha Fanjoy
In this article, we argue that return in the aftermath of conflict-induced displacement is often undertaken in contexts of uncertainty. After years spent in war and displacement, people return to an unknown and uncertain present and future, shaped by ideal images of home and brutal memories of conflict. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among South Sudanese refugees in Kenya and Canada and returnees in South Sudan, we analyze the 'return home' strategies, motivations, and experiences of returnee men. We suggest that uncertainty often transforms the present and the future of returning populations and the societies to which they return. Our research shows that in their attempts to minimize their wartime and displacement uncertainties, returnee men transform, negotiate, and reconstruct national, ethnic, and gender identities in a variety of ways, depending on their age and experiences in exile.