Stuck Moving: Or, How I Learned to Love (and Lament) Anthropology

Stuck Moving is a unique literary and conceptual experiment that challenges traditional anthropology by exploring the personal journey of a professor with bipolar disorder, drug addiction, and a stalled career. It satirizes the ableist notion of anthropologists as outside observers and exposes the backstage of academic work and life. Through a blend of cultural studies, psychoanalysis, comedy, screenwriting, music lyrics, and poetry, the book challenges anthropologys rigid genre conventions and exposes the unbecoming self behind scholarship. It also critiques the disciplines function as a culture resource for global health and the neoliberal university.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 380 pages
Publication date: 11 April 2023
Publisher: University of California Press

Stuck Moving is a groundbreaking literary and conceptual experiment that defies conventional approaches to anthropology. Rather than embarking on field trips to explore other cultures, this book takes a personal and introspective journey within the discipline itself. It is, at once, a love story and a critical exploration of academia and contemporary society.

The protagonist of the story, a professor grappling with bipolar disorder, drug addiction, and a stalled career, embarks on a quest for meaning and purpose within a seemingly sanctimonious discipline and a society in disarray. The book challenges the notion that anthropologists are mere observers of a chaotic world, instead revealing the backstage of academic work and life, as well as the unbecoming self behind scholarship.

Stuck Moving employs a diverse range of literary techniques, blending cultural studies, psychoanalysis, comedy, screenwriting, music lyrics, and poetry. It abandons the rigid genre conventions of anthropology, rejecting the suffocating solemnity and enduring colonial model of extractive knowledge production. By satirizing the discipline's function as a culture resource for global health and the neoliberal university, the book unsettles anthropologists' hopeful claims about their role in social change.

Through its witty and poignant storytelling, Stuck Moving offers a fresh perspective on anthropology and its relationship to the world around us. It challenges readers to think critically about the discipline and its role in shaping our understanding of culture and society. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in anthropology, literature, and social commentary.

Weight: 516g
Dimension: 227 x 153 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520388741