Introduction: reconsidering detachment

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

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.
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1644226
• Publisher URL: http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9780719096853