Routine Crisis - (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning) by Sarah Muir (Paperback)

About the Book

"Argentina, once heralded as the future of the West, has by now a long history of economic volatility. In 2001-2002, a financial crisis led to its worst economic collapse, precipitating a dramatic currency devaluation, the largest sovereign default in world history, and the flight of foreign capital. Protests and street blockades punctuated a moment of profound political uncertainty, epitomized by the rapid succession of five presidents in four months. Since then, Argentina has fought economic fires on every front, from inflation to cost of utilities to depressed industrial output. When things clearly aren't working, when the constant churning of booms and busts makes life almost unlivable, why does our deeply compromised order seem so inescapable? Why does critique seem so blunt even as crisis after crisis appears on the horizon? Anthropologist Sarah Muir offers a cogent meditation on the limits of critique at this historical moment, drawing on deep experience in Argentina but reflecting on a truly global condition. If we can see clearly how things are being upended in a manner that is ongoing, tumultuous, and not for the good, what would we need--and what would we need to let go--to usher in a revitalized critique for today's world? Routine Crisis is an original provocation and a challenge to think beyond the limits of exhaustion and reinvigorate criticism for the twenty-first century"--

Book Synopsis

Argentina, once heralded as the future of capitalist progress, has a long history of economic volatility. In 2001-2002, a financial crisis led to its worst economic collapse, precipitating a dramatic currency devaluation, the largest sovereign default in world history, and the flight of foreign capital. Protests and street blockades punctuated a moment of profound political uncertainty, epitomized by the rapid succession of five presidents in four months. Since then, Argentina has fought economic fires on every front, from inflation to the cost of utilities and depressed industrial output. When things clearly aren't working, when the constant churning of booms and busts makes life almost unlivable, how does our deeply compromised order come to seem so inescapable? How does critique come to seem so blunt, even as crisis after crisis appears on the horizon? What are the lived effects of that sense of inescapability?

Anthropologist Sarah Muir offers a cogent meditation on the limits of critique at this historical moment, drawing on deep experience in Argentina but reflecting on a truly global condition. If we feel things are being upended in a manner that is ongoing, tumultuous, and harmful, what would we need to do-and what would we need to give up-to usher in a revitalized critique for today's world? Routine Crisis is an original provocation and a challenge to think beyond the limits of exhaustion and reimagine a form of criticism for the twenty-first century.

Review Quotes

"Routine Crisis is a sophisticated, well-written, and thought-provoking book that makes a valuable contribution to the growing literature on late-capitalist temporality, crisis, and critique, not to mention Argentina."-- "Anthropological Quarterly"

"Routine Crisis offers a novel approach in anthropological studies of crisis. Muir tracks the production and productive capacity of disillusion, and in doing so challenges political anthropologists to focus not only on the possibility of new beginnings, but also on the lived experience of endings. Thematically, Routine Crisis will be of interest to anyone involved in studies of crisis, corruption, or Argentina. The book deserves a broader readership, however, due to Muir's compelling writing, the way she renders the often-complex tools of linguistic anthropology easily comprehensible, and her impressive capacity as an ethnographer to untangle the messy, often seemingly contradictory ways in which her interlocutors express the experience of disillusion."-- "PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review"

"Argentina's economic crisis of 2001-02 led its government to unpeg the peso from the US dollar, impoverishing millions. Successive governments sought remedies with varying degrees of success. Muir arrived in Buenos Aires in 2003 and spent several years conducting ethnographic research on the reactions of the self-described middle class to the financial collapse. The result is a compelling analysis of her informants' 'crisis talk, ' their disillusionment and loss of faith in the future. . . . Recommended."-- "Choice"

"By looking at the discursive practices through which members of the Argentine middle class construct and interpret the crisis and its aftermath, Muir shows how a semiotic, language-focused approach can help us to ask new questions regarding social upheaval and its consequences in communities worldwide... a needed challenge to overly optimistic approaches that fail to account for the realities of how people interact with crisis in their day-to-day lives."-- "Journal of Linguistic Anthropology"

"Routine Crisis is a stunning ethnography of the tumultuous lives of Argentineans in economic crisis. Muir's analytical acumen shines through in her semiotically-informed 'listening' to what she calls 'crisis talk'. She deftly shows us how the linguistic and cultural form of crisis talk produces a normalcy of crisis out of the perennial predicament of political economy in Argentina. This is a must-read book on not only how the Global South lives, but also on how ethnography is enriched by the methods of linguistic anthropology."-- "Miyako Inoue, Stanford University"

"In this lucid and challenging ethnography, Muir opens a window into the historical sensibility of inevitable and recurrent crisis and its consequences for the imagination of alternative futures. This book does nothing less than demand we reframe history itself--disallowing comfortable beginnings and endings--and linger in the routines of crisis, querying its aftermaths, and forgoing our obsolete utopias."-- "Bill Maurer, University of California, Irvine"

About the Author

Sarah Muir is assistant professor of anthropology at the City College of New York and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.