ABSTRACT
The predilection of ignorance studies for unexpected events and crises has been pointed out and analyzed by several authors. These instances of individual recognition notwithstanding, the analytical appreciation of these particular research sites has not been voiced as a general statement about the whole field, nor have the implications for how the exploration of ignorance plays out been directly and explicitly addressed. This chapter argues that it would be beneficial to formally recognize the importance of focusing on unexpected events and crises in ignorance studies. It arrives at this conclusion in three steps. First, it analyzes the manner in which ignorance studies explain their recent proliferation as a field of research, which indicates a specific problematization of what ignorance is in this respect. Second, it runs through a qualitative analysis of relevant literature and argues that it not only seems that we are living in a society of unexpected events and crises but that this new configuration is constitutive of the advancement of ignorance studies to a great extent. Third, it abstracts three main assumptions in ignorance studies – correctability, omnipresence, and impossibility – and shows how the idea of the unexpected is deeply encrypted in each of them.
