Self-formation in precarious conditions

Drawing on ethnographic research with women among former refugees from Lebanon in Berlin, this article reflects on the concept of ethical self-formation as a tool for ethnographic analysis in contexts beyond closely delineated religious or pedagogical ones, and in economically precarious conditions. I revisit James Laidlaw’s approach to ethics and freedom as an example of an approach that emphasizes self-formation as the most fundamental dimension of ethics. If applied to actors in their everyday relational and larger political contexts, self-formation is always closely intertwined with other forms of ethical striving, and can only be one among a variety of dimensions of ethics instead of its most fundamental one. Focusing on ethics as self-formation is useful because it reveals how it is distinctions between situated selves and particular others, which are shaped by political contexts, actor positions, and individual trajectories, that form the basis of people’s ethical reflections, evaluations, and actions.