Compliance

What kind of phenomenon is it when ordinary people in the United Kingdom unexpectedly abide by government advice on social distancing response to COVID-19 pandemic, even anticipating constraints their activities? These happenings demand that we engage anthropologically with compliance – acts or activities conform, submit adapt rules demands others. At present, there no ‘anthropology compliance’. Rather, discipline has inherited traditions thought about as a necessary aspect sociability morally suspect complicity, demanding resistance. assumptions remain unexamined, but profoundly shape anthropological scholarship. This introduction aims show how and why might be useful heuristic for anthropology. We define set means which actors strive accommodate themselves others collective life . argue this conception allows us multiply kinds phenomena can call ‘political’. It think political constitution ‘radical’ difference, avoid making identical cultural conceptual worlds. By showing what operates life, ought therefore able recover both specific forms suffering inequality ways lives are constitutively different.