Trust in anthropology

Bibliographic Data

ID2401795
AuthorsAlberto Corsín Jiménez (0000-0002-1360-4060, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, Spain,, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume11
Issue2
Pages177-196
Publication date2011-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropological Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1463-4996 • E-ISSN: 1741-2641
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1463499611407392
OpenAlexW2112205484
LanguageEN
Citations received75
References cited36

The article explores some of the assumptions behind the current valence of the notion of trust and in particular its entanglement in discourses of social robustness, the management and reporting of (corporate) knowledge, and its underlying culture and systems of responsibility. It unfolds by contrasting classic and contemporary anthropological work on cultures of suspicion, culpability and spiritual ambiguity with the new vocabulary of capitalist corporate ethics. Finally, the argument examines the work that relationships do when moving in and out of the occult, and contrasts it with the kind of temporal work that capitalism demands from relationships to remain diaphanous. If public trust functions as the political epistemology of neoliberal society, an anthropological theory of trust ought perhaps to reaffirm instead our trust in anthropological theory and comparison

Ambiguity · Capitalism · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies