{"title":"GOOD BUREAUCRATS AND GOD: The Ethical Labor of the Public","authors":"MAIRA HAYAT","doi":"10.14506/ca39.4.06","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Bureaucracies are typically studied for lessons in structural violence, anti-politics, failures of law, and as foils to the ethical. I, however, argue that they constitute uniquely important sites to theorize the ethical. Conceptualizing ethical labor as a modality of everyday bureaucratic work, I examine this labor as it enrolls law, God, and vernaculars of work, and takes the form of public-private distinction-making. The article expands the anthropology of bureaucracy, ethics, and Islam by going beyond showing that public-private distinctions are immanent to modern secular power, arguing instead that they are actively labored for in everyday bureaucratic work. As a result, who they favor or menace is a function of specific political-legal and historical lineages.</p>","PeriodicalId":51423,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Anthropology","volume":"39 4","pages":"616-644"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.14506/ca39.4.06","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cultural Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.14506/ca39.4.06","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Bureaucracies are typically studied for lessons in structural violence, anti-politics, failures of law, and as foils to the ethical. I, however, argue that they constitute uniquely important sites to theorize the ethical. Conceptualizing ethical labor as a modality of everyday bureaucratic work, I examine this labor as it enrolls law, God, and vernaculars of work, and takes the form of public-private distinction-making. The article expands the anthropology of bureaucracy, ethics, and Islam by going beyond showing that public-private distinctions are immanent to modern secular power, arguing instead that they are actively labored for in everyday bureaucratic work. As a result, who they favor or menace is a function of specific political-legal and historical lineages.
期刊介绍：
Cultural Anthropology publishes ethnographic writing informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives, innovative in form and content, and focused on both traditional and emerging topics. It also welcomes essays concerned with ethnographic methods and research design in historical perspective, and with ways cultural analysis can address broader public audiences and interests.
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