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Introduction: reconsidering detachment

Candea, C.; Cook, J.; Trundle, C.; Yarrow, T.

Authors

C. Candea

J. Cook

C. Trundle



Contributors

C. Candea
Editor

J. Cook
Editor

C. Trundle
Editor

Abstract

This volume urges a reconsideration of the productive potential of disconnection, distance and detachment, as ethical, methodological and philosophical commitments. In so doing, we write against the grain of a strong tendency in contemporary social theory and public life. Engagement has, in a wide range of contexts, become a definitive and unquestionable social good, one that encompasses or abuts with a number of other seductive cultural tropes, such as participation, democracy, voice, equality, diversity and empowerment. Conversely, detachment has come to symbolize a range of social harms: authoritarianism and hierarchy, being out of touch, bureaucratic coldness and unresponsiveness, a lack of empathy, and passivity and inaction. Yet as this book will argue, in a wide range of settings detachment is still socially, ethically and politically valued, and the relationship between detachment and engagement is not simple or singular.

Citation

Candea, C., Cook, J., Trundle, C., & Yarrow, T. (2015). Introduction: reconsidering detachment. In C. Candea, J. Cook, C. Trundle, & T. Yarrow (Eds.), Detachment: essays on the limits of relational thinking (1-34). Manchester University Press

Publication Date Oct 1, 2015
Deposit Date Nov 19, 2015
Publisher Manchester University Press
Pages 1-34
Book Title Detachment: essays on the limits of relational thinking.
Publisher URL http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780719096853


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