The field is growing fast and this handbook reflects this interdisciplinary field of study by drawing contributions from economics sociology history philosophy cultural studies anthropology feminist studies and related fields in order to serve as a seminal guide to the political legal and social uses of ignorance in social and political life. Once treated as the absence of knowledge ignorance today has become a highly influential topic in its own right commanding growing attention across the natural and social sciences where a wide range of scholars have begun to explore the social life and political issues involved in the distribution and strategic use of not knowing the field is growing fast and this handbook reflects this . Once treated as the absence of knowledge ignorance today has become a highly influential topic in its own right commanding growing attention across the natural and social sciences where a wide range of scholars have begun to explore the social life and political issues involved in the distribution and strategic use of not knowing the field is growing fast and this handbook reflects this . Ignorance has been consciously cultivated as the most fecund moment in the whole process of encountering and relating to an order of beings that transcends the instrumental order of objects known only in terms of their usefulness for human purposes and projects this valorization of ignorance is found in a particularly radical form in thinkers. The field is growing fast and this handbook reflects this interdisciplinary field of study by drawing contributions from economics sociology history philosophy cultural studies anthropology feminist studies and related fields in order to serve as a seminal guide to the political legal and social uses of ignorance in social and political life chapter 33 of this book is freely available