Routine Crisis: An Ethnography of Disillusion

Argentina's history of economic volatility has led to protests and street blockades, and anthropologist Sarah Muir offers a meditation on the limits of critique at this historical moment. She suggests that we need to do and give up to usher in a revitalized critique for today's world.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 200 pages
\n Publication date: 14 May 2021
\n Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
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Argentina, once seen as a beacon of capitalist progress, has a turbulent economic history. In the early 2000s, a financial crisis plunged the country into its worst economic collapse, resulting in a significant currency devaluation, the largest sovereign default in global history, and the exodus of foreign capital. Protests and street blockades marked a period of profound political uncertainty, with a rapid succession of five presidents in just four months. Since then, Argentina has grappled with various economic challenges, including inflation, rising utility costs, and depressed industrial output. When economic systems fail to provide stability and prosperity, how does our deeply flawed order become seemingly unavoidable? How does critique become blunt, even as crises seem to loom on the horizon? What are the lived consequences of this sense of inevitability?

Anthropologist Sarah Muir provides a thought-provoking exploration of the boundaries of critique in this historical context, drawing from her extensive experience in Argentina while reflecting on a broader global condition. If we perceive ongoing, tumultuous, and harmful changes, what actions would be necessary to revitalize critique for the twenty-first century?

Routine Crisis is an original provocation that encourages us to think beyond the limits of exhaustion and envision a new form of criticism for our times. It challenges us to reimagine our approach to critique and explore new avenues for meaningful change in a world that is constantly evolving.

\n Weight: 424g\n
Dimension: 159 x 235 x 18 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9780226752648\n \n