The endurance of critique

• Published in: Anthropological theory Vol. 17; no. 1; pp. 4 - 29
• Main Author: Fassin, Didier
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2017; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome; AIDS; Anthropology; Critical theory; Critical thinking; Ethnography; Exaggeration; Genealogy; Health care policy; Humanities; Palestinian people; Punishment; Social sciences; Trauma; critical sociology; history of anthropology; critique of critique; critical theory; critique; sociology of critique; ethnography; genealogy
• ISSN: 1463-4996; 1741-2641
• DOI: 10.1177/1463499616688157

Critique in the humanities and the social sciences has recently been under attack and even declared lifeless. Considering the report of its death to be an exaggeration but acknowledging that one should never let a good crisis go to waste, I propose a reflection on the challenges faced by the practice of critical thinking in anthropology based on my own research on AIDS in South Africa, trauma among Palestinians, and policing and punishment in France, while resituating the questions it raises in a broader history of the discipline. More specifically, I discuss two major strands, genealogical critique and critical theory, suggesting how they may be combined, and two opposed views, critical sociology and the sociology of critique, showing that ethnography can surmount their supposed irreconcilability. Affirming that critique, under its multiple forms, is inherent to the anthropological project, I contend that it is more than ever needed in times laden with worrying spectres.