In recent years, disappointment has emerged as a prominent topic of anthropological inquiry and theorization. We explore this disciplinary interest in order to probe the conditions that have made it possible, the lines of inquiry it opens up, and the self-reflexive critiques it underscores. Running throughout the anthropological literature on disappointment is a pressing concern with the messy, unpredictable, and friction-laden dimensions of social life, dimensions that eschew easy categorization in terms of the heroic/abject, agentive/passive, macro/micro, righteous/wrong-headed, or progressive/reactionary. After exploring the conditions that underlie disappointment, we discuss comparison, poetics, and slog as three domains of its anthropological analysis, highlighting key methodological innovations, ethnographic genres, and research questions within each area. We close with reflections on disappointment within the discipline, focusing on the experience of field research, the moral optimism of the discipline, and the institutional conditions that shape knowledge production and professional life.

中文翻译：

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 失望


近年来，失望已成为人类学探究和理论化的一个突出话题。我们探索这种学科兴趣，是为了探究使其成为可能的条件、它所开辟的探究路线以及它所强调的自我反思性批评。在关于失望的人类学文献中，贯穿着对社会生活混乱、不可预测和充满摩擦的维度的紧迫关注，这些维度避免了英雄/卑鄙、主动/被动、宏观/微观、正义/错误等简单分类。 - 有头脑的，或进步的/反动的。在探索了失望背后的条件之后，我们将比较、诗学和艰苦作为人类学分析的三个领域进行讨论，强调每个领域内的关键方法论创新、民族志流派和研究问题。最后，我们对学科内部的失望进行反思，重点关注实地研究的经验、学科的道德乐观主义以及塑造知识生产和职业生活的制度条件。