Afterword to an Unpublished Forum

Abstract

The questions in the fifty-sixth issue of Antropologicheskij Forum addressed the changes that have taken place in our lives and workover the past year. By focusing on the concept of “boundaries”, theeditors invited the authors to reflect on the changes that are occuringtoday in our professional practices, in the field, and in our understandingof the profession. The Forum was meant to be a platformfor dialogue between people not only divided, but still united byboundaries—disciplinary, epistemic, value-based, etc. The variety ofresponses and reactions received, and the sharpness and emotionalityof many remarks faced the editors with a difficult choice. Finally,we made the decision not to publish the materials of the ‘SocialSciences and Boundaries’ Forum in the journal. In our ‘Afterwordan Unpublished Forum’ we discuss topics that have become key today:silence, public dumbness, attempts to overcome them, and the searchfor new ways to talk about modernity in the social sciences in Russiaand about Russia today.