Competing Responsibilities: The Ethics and Politics of Contemporary Life
Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and coeditor of Senses and Citizenships: Embodying Political Life.
Catherine Trundle is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington and coeditor of Detachment: Essays on the Limits of Relational Thinking.
Susanna Trnka is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Auckland and coeditor of Senses and Citizenships: Embodying Political Life.
Catherine Trundle is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University of Wellington and coeditor of Detachment: Essays on the Limits of Relational Thinking.
In this essay I consider the relation between ontological starting points, harm reduction, and responsibilization. I begin with a brief discussion of the dominant “modern form of ontology” and its relation to familiar notions of morality and biopolitics. I then consider what I call the typical model of harm reduction as an illustration of the enactment of this ontology and how this results in what we call responsibilization. I then briefly and critically engage a recent and influential alternative ontology offered by a prominent social theorist, and consider its shortcomings in taking up a Levinasian conception of responsibility. Finally, and...
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