A new theory of relational ethics that tackles contemporary issues. In How Is It Between Us?, Jarrett Zigon puts anthropology and phenomenological hermeneutics in conversation to develop a new theory of relational ethics. This relational ethics takes place in the between, the interaction not just between people, but all existents. Importantly, this theory is utilized as a framework for considering some of today's most pressing ethical concerns-for example, living in a condition of post-truth and worlds increasingly driven by algorithms and data extraction, various and competing calls for justice, and the ethical demands of the climate crisis. Written by one of the preeminent contributors to the anthropology of ethics, this is a ground-breaking book within that literature, developing a robust and systematic ethical theory to think through contemporary ethical problems.
Jarrett Zigon is the William & Linda Porterfield Chair in Bioethics and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books on ethics, drug rehabilitation, the 'anti-drug war' movement, and social change in post-Soviet Russia, including A War on People: Drug User Politics and a New Ethics of Community, Disappointment: Toward a Critical Hermeneutics of Worldbuilding, HIV Is God's Blessing: Rehabilitating Morality in Neoliberal Russia, and Making the New Post-Soviet Person: Moral Experience in Contemporary Moscow.