Theory as ethics

Abstract

To theorize is to make an argument, to make sense of the world, to name and create. It is to stake a claim in and about the world. This can be an ethical act. But it has not always been one. Thinking of theory as ethics, rather than solely as intellectual practice, requires a rethinking of the purpose and not just the content of theory. This is not a prescription for theory but an acknowledgment of a shift underway across the disciplines. In anthropology, one key move is our recognition of ethnography as theory as well as method. As we reassess theory as a form of ethnographic knowledge, how and when do ethics enter the conversation? What are our responsibilities to speak not only truth to power, but also ethics to theory? [ethnography, theory, ethics, anthropology, fieldwork, refusal, relations, storytelling].