This book examines the social practice of mistrust through the lens of social anthropology. In focusing on the citizens of the Caucasus, a region located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, Mühlfried counters the postcolonial discourse that routinely treats these individuals, known for their mistrust of the state, as others. Combining ethnographic observations presenting mistrust as an observable reality with socio-political issues from a non-Western region, Mühlfried opens up a non-Eurocentric perspective on an underexplored social practice and a major counterpoint to the well-examined social phenomenon of trust. This perspective allows for a more profound understanding of pressing issues such as populist movements and post-truth politics.

Florian Mühlfried is a writer and social anthropologist based in Vienna. His academic publications include the edited volumes Mistrust: Ethnographic Approximations (2018) andSacred Places, Emerging Spaces: Religious Pluralism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus (coedited with Tsyplylma Darieva and Kevin Tuite) as well as the booksBeing a State and States of Being in Highland Georgia (2014) andPost-Soviet Feasting: The Georgian Banquet in Transition (2006, in German).

Chapter 1. Distrusting Mistrust.- Chapter 2. Mistrusting the System.- Chapter 3. Mistrust and Complexity.- Chapter 4. Radical Forms of Mistrust.- Chapter 5. Mistrusting the Obvious.- Chapter 6. Crisis of Mistrust.