The Cunning of Recognition

""The Cunning of Recognition" is one of the most challenging books I have read in years, a passionate and moving account of what the practice of multiculturalism looks like on the ground. Along the way, Povinelli inventively reframes debates within anthropological theory over kinship, culture, and the state. Without platitudes or readymade postures of critique, she shows us an impasse in liberal thought that stems not from its weaknesses, but from its strongest ethical sense of obligation toward those who are different. This is dialectical thinking at its best, painfully and excitingly honest."--Michael Warner, author of "The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life"

Elizabeth A. Povinelli is Professor of Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago.