Routine Crisis

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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