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Organised ignorance

volume 23, number 1

If the political is the constitutive moment of the social, then ignorance is definitely political. Ignorance involves deciding what can be talked about and what cannot be talked about; what should be remembered or forgotten; known or not known; seen or unseen. This special issue investigates the work it takes and the practices that make it possible for organizations to ignore uncomfortable or disturbing information. In recent year, with concepts such as agnotology or oracular power, studies have explored ignorance as intentional and strategic. The contributions to this special issue bracket the question of individual intentionality and study ignorance not only as a cognitive phenomenon, but as the outcome of different processes of organising. The contributions investigate how ignorance is practiced, produced and reproduced in daily interactions between multiple social actors with differing and ambivalent agendas as well as how it is supported by non-human infrastructures. 

The special issue includes six empirical articles exploring organised ignorance and three notes reflecting on methodological questions in the study of organised ignorance. The issue advances the understanding of organised ignorance and emphasise the politics of organising.

All Issues

| vol. 23, no. 2
| vol. 23, no. 1
| vol. 22, no. 3