Pawning and Challenging in Concert: Engagement as a Field of Studies

Abstract

An introduction of sorts, this text opens the thematic collection of articles on engagement. It takes up the idea that a particular group of people engage the idea of engagement in order to establish a field of study. In so doing, the text proposes to tackle the specific creation of the field and of the ‘we’ that engages with its creation. The first portion of the text deals with the multiple meanings of engagement; the second with the idea of the group (of who the ‘we’ is and what it does); while the last segment engages the idea of the political in engagement. Its main aim is to show how the we and the field, at least for a time, cannot be easily disentangled.