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Arthur Kleinman Quotes

We are storied folk. Stories are what we are; telling and listening to stories is what we do.

We are storied folk. Stories are what we are; telling and listening to stories is what we do.

Arthur Kleinman
Writing, Listening, Stories

Stories open up new paths, sometimes send us back to old ones, and close off still others. Telling and listening to stories we too imaginatively walk down those paths - paths of longing, paths of hope, paths of desperation.

Arthur Kleinman
Writing, Listening, Path

Hope is what makes the human condition liveable

Arthur Kleinman
Human Condition, Humans, Conditions
Arthur Kleinman (2007). “What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger”, p.45, Oxford University Press

We tend to think of dangers and uncertainties as anomalies in the continuum of life, or irruptions of unpredictable forces into a largely predictable world. I suggest the contrary: that dangers and uncertainties are an inescapable dimension of life. In fact, as we shall come to understand, they make life matter. They define what it means to be human.

Arthur Kleinman
Mean, Thinking, Anomalies
Arthur Kleinman (2007). “What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger”, p.1, Oxford University Press

Michael Jackson is an extremely productive ethnographer, a serious reader of phenomenological and existential philosophy, and a remarkable writer at a level that one rarely sees in anthropology. Lifeworlds, unsurprisingly, is no exception. The several essays included here fit into an impressive whole that set out a compelling case for a type of ethnography of which Jackson is one of the masters. The writing is strong and the critical reflections impressive. This book defines an approach to anthropology that is resonant enough to challenge the leading models of our time.

Arthur Kleinman
Strong, Philosophy, Book

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