Where is the Good in the World?: Ethical Life between Social Theory and Philosophy

Published by Berghahn Books 2022

Where is the Good in the World?

Ethical Life between Social Theory and Philosophy

Edited by: David Henig , Anna Strhan and Joel Robbins

Volume 12 in the series WYSE Series in Social Anthropology

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781800735521

Overview
Contents

About this book

Bringing together contributions from anthropology, sociology, religious studies, and philosophy, along with ethnographic case studies from diverse settings, this volume explores how different disciplinary perspectives on the good might engage with and enrich each other. The chapters examine how people realize the good in social life, exploring how ethics and values relate to forms of suffering, power and inequality, and, in doing so, demonstrate how focusing on the good enhances social theory. This is the first interdisciplinary engagement with what it means to study the good as a fundamental aspect of social life.

Author / Editor information

David Henig is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. He is the author of Remaking Muslim Lives: Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina (Illinois UP, 2020) and the co-editor of Economies of Favour After Socialism (OUP, 2017).

Anna Strhan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. She is the author of The Figure of the Child in Contemporary Evangelicalism (OUP, 2019) and the co-editor of Religion and the Global City (Bloomsbury, 2017).

Joel Robbins is the Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of numerous publications, including the books Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society (UC Press, 2004), and Theology and the Anthropology of Christian Life (OUP, 2020).

David Henig is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. He is the author of Remaking Muslim Lives: Everyday Islam in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina (Illinois UP, 2020) and the co-editor of Economies of Favour After Socialism (OUP, 2017).

Reviews

“This is a stimulating collection that generatively engages an emerging area across multiple disciplines. The volume's structure is tightly conceptualized, and the essays often provocative. The volume is well poised to earn a committed readership.” • James Bielo, Miami University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction. The Good between Social Theory and Philosophy David Henig and Anna Strhan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Theoretical Perspectives
1. Where Is the Good in the World? Joel Robbins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
2. Nowhere and Everywhere Michael Lambek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
3. Between Durkheim and Bauman: A Relational Sociology of Morality in Practice Owen Abbott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
4. For the Agony of ‘the Good’ and of the Moral Courage to Do It Iain Wilkinson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
5. Thinking Time, Ethics and Generations: An Auto-ethnographic Essay on the Good between Philosophy and Social Theory Victor Jeleniewski Seidler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Part I. Commentary Steven Lukes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
Part II. Approaching the Good in Everyday Life
6. ‘To See a Sinner Repent Is a Joyful Thing’: Moral Cultures and the Sexual Abuse of Children in the Christian Church Gordon Lynch Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
7. Making the Good Corporate Citizen: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Ethical Projects of Management Consultancy in Contemporary China Kimberly Chong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
8. ‘God Isn’t a Communist’: Conservative Evangelicals, Money and Morality in London Anna Strhan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
9. Doing Good: Cultivating Children’s Ethical Sensibilities in School Assemblies Rachael Shillitoe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	180
10. Locating an Elusive Ethics: Surface and Depth in a Jewish Ethnography Ruth Sheldon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	200
11. Radical Hope as a Practice of Possibilities: On the Fragility of Goodness and Struggles for Justice in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina David Henig Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
Part II. Commentary Maeve Cooke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	234
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	244

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 260

eBook

Published: July 8, 2022
ISBN: 9781800735521