Vigilance: On Conflict, Social Invisibility, and Negative Potentiality

Henrik Erdman Vigh

doi:10.3167/sa.2011.550306

Vigilance: On Conflict, Social Invisibility, and Negative Potentiality

27 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between conflict, social invisibility, and negative potentiality. Taking its empirical point of departure in fieldwork conducted in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, it illuminates the manner in which people orient themselves toward precarious prospects and potentialities. Little attention has been paid to the orientational effects generated by long-term conflict-that is, the way that violence, as an underlying possibility, an imagined oncoming event, influences social life. Moving from the empirical to the theoretical, and from the specific to the general, the article compares two areas of conflict and orientation toward negative potentiality before moving on to a more general discussion of invisibility and potentiality in social life and theory.

Original language	Danish
Journal	Social Analysis: The International Journal of Anthropology
Volume	55
Issue number	3
Pages (from-to)	93-114
Number of pages	22
ISSN	0155-977X
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2011.550306
Publication status	Published - 2011

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10.3167/sa.2011.550306

Cite this

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