Overview

In Economies of Abandonment, Elizabeth A. Povinelli explores how late liberal imaginaries of tense, eventfulness, and ethical substance make the global distribution of life and death, hope and harm, and endurance and exhaustion not merely sensible but also just. She presents new ways of conceptualizing formations of power in late liberalism-the shape that liberal governmentality has taken as it has responded to a series of legitimacy crises in the wake of anticolonial and new social movements and, more recently, the “clash of civilizations” after September 11. Based on longstanding ethnographic work in Australia and the United States, as well as critical readings of legal, academic, and activist texts, Povinelli examines how alternative social worlds and projects generate new possibilities of life in the context of ordinary and extraordinary acts of neglect and surveillance. She focuses particularly on social projects that have not yet achieved a concrete existence but persist at the threshold of possible existence. By addressing the question of the endurance, let alone the survival, of alternative forms of life, Povinelli opens new ethical and political questions.

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Reviews

Economies of Abandonment is an erudite book that unravels crucial linkages between the transformed character of liberal policies in our present and the shattered lives of those who live under its ever-expanding shadow. It will be widely read and appreciated for its thoughtful and provocative arguments. Saba Mahmood, University of California, Berkeley Elizabeth A. Povinelli's book is ambitious and original. It reflects her extraordinary ability to move from high theoretical discussions of philosophical concepts, to broad perspectives on late liberalism, to precise accounts of political and legal controversies, as well as public conversations on sex, drugs, religion, ecology, and other matters. Her argument in Economies of Abandonment is impressive in its breadth and depth. The book will provide an important contribution to future critical discussions, not only in anthropology but much more broadly. Eric Fassin, Ecole Normale Superieure

Economies of Abandonment is an erudite book that unravels crucial linkages between the transformed character of liberal policies in our present and the shattered lives of those who live under its ever-expanding shadow. It will be widely read and appreciated for its thoughtful and provocative arguments. --Saba Mahmood, University of California, Berkeley

Economies of Abandonment is an erudite book that unravels crucial linkages between the transformed character of liberal policies in our present and the shattered lives of those who live under its ever-expanding shadow. It will be widely read and appreciated for its thoughtful and provocative arguments. Saba Mahmood, University of California, Berkeley Elizabeth A. Povinelli's book is ambitious and original. It reflects her extraordinary ability to move from high theoretical discussions of philosophical concepts, to broad perspectives on late liberalism, to precise accounts of political and legal controversies, as well as public conversations on sex, drugs, religion, ecology, and other matters. Her argument in Economies of Abandonment is impressive in its breadth and depth. The book will provide an important contribution to future critical discussions, not only in anthropology but much more broadly. Eric Fassin, Ecole Normale Superieure Povinelli approaches liberal imaginary visions of tense, eventfulness, and ethics through an inspiring study of current social and political theory. Economies of Abandonment makes a profound statement on the dynamics of the concept of belonging within a world of social difference plagued by the irregularities of liberal policy. The reader of this book is taken on an unexpected journey of different case studies (real, imagined, and textual) and theoretical and philosophical frameworks which set the scene for a thought provoking discussion of social difference, alternate social worlds and liberal politics. - Marco Ceccarelli, Limina Economies of Abandonment impresses, to be sure, because of Povinelli's penetrating analyses and intellectual sweep, but even more so because of her conscience, political passion and willingness to persevere. - Kenneth M. George, Interventions Situated between the 'eventful' tenses of settler governance and anthropological imaginaries, Povinelli continues to trace out how we might produce positive sociographies of those whom settler states encounter, scrutinize and abandon. - Timothy Neale, Postcolonial Studies

Author Information

Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University. She is the author of The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality and The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism, both also published by Duke University Press, as well as Labor’s Lot: The Power, History, and Culture of Aboriginal Action.

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