HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
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Are anthropologists monsters? An Andean dystopian critique of extractivist ethnography and Anglophone-centric anthropology
No full textThe article departs from an ethnographic experience involving the kharisiri, a dystopian, fat-stealing monster of the Bolivian Andes that has been analyzed by generations of anthropologists to understand Aymara culture. However, it argues that when Aymara people identify Others, in this case anthropologists, with the kharisiri, they are primarily saying something about those Others, and not about themselves. Following Wagner’s “reverse anthropology” and Taussig’s study of native evil figures as a critique of capitalism, this article proposes that people who have been subjected to anthropological scrutiny have a critical vantage point on anthropological practices. Thus, dystopia and monstrosity fulfill a decolonial purpose by handing over a mirror to anthropologists, urging them to meditate on their own monstrous ways of operating, the “extractivist” nature of ethnography, the Anglophone-centrism of anthropological writing, and, not least, the coercive reward systems of academia which disciplinize us into practicing “kharisiri anthropology.
The devil and the hidden life of numbers: Translations and transformations in Amazonia: The Inaugural Claude Lévi-Strauss lecture
No full textThe notion of “aberrant derivations,” coined by Lévi-Strauss in The origin of table manners in his discussion of the strange sums made by Native American peoples, take us to an usual starting point-mathematics, to explore the theme of the transformations arising from the encounter between Amerindian peoples and whites in Amazonia, among them the conversion of Christianity
Is there a place for faith in anthropology? Religion, reason, and the ethnographer’s divine revelation
No full textAnthropological insights are not produced or constructed through reasoned discourse alone. Often they appear to be given in “leaps of faith” as the anthropologist’s conceptual grasp upon the world is lost. To understand these peculiar moments, we adopt the Kierkegaardian concept of religious faith, not as certitude in some transcendental principle, but as a deeply paradoxical mode of knowing, whose paths bend and twist through glimpses of understanding, doubt, and existential resignation. Pointing to the ways in which such revelatory and disruptive experiences have influenced the work of many anthropologists, we argue that anthropology is not simply a social science, but also a theology of sorts, whose ultimate foundation might not simply be reason but faith
Turning to life: A comment
No full textLife is a concept that is commonly encountered in ethnographicl iterature. Most social anthropologists seem happy to live with a broadly uncritical approach to it. In recent years, however, it has come to our notice that if we truly aim to take on interdisciplinarity in any serious way, we cannot avoid dealing with life as an analytical tool. In this essay, I examine the notion of life in light of ethnographic theory. I outline three broad families of meaning of the category “life” as it appears in the ethnographic register. Taking recourse to Marilyn Strathern’s inspiration, I conclude that these meanings can be integrated if we see them in terms of scale
Technologies of inquiry: HIV tests and divination
No full textHIV testing and divination are both performances that offer access to privileged knowledge about grave problems. In comparing this relatively new technology with a very old technology of knowledge, we consider the experience-near analogies in the ritual performance of discovery and the handling of uncertainty. Specialists must convince inquirers that the knowledge revealed is true. Inquirers test the provisional truths these practices offer by seeking a second opinion and by considering the outcomes in the light of previous and subsequent experience. The kinds of evidence deployed and the nature of the institutional landscape in HIV testing differ sharply from those of divination. Yet both practices show how tests must be embedded in the worlds they purport to affect
One world anthropology
No full textAnthropology is a philosophical inquiry into the conditions and possibilities of life in the one world we all inhabit. That this world is indeed one is a core principle of the discipline. By exploring the relation between the particular life and life-as-a-whole, I show how the latter can be understood as a correspondence in which lives are not added together but carry on alongside one another. Life itself, then, is not the summation but the correspondence of its particulars. Comparing ideas of the self and the soul, founded respectively in regimes of naturalism and animism, I show how correspondence proceeds through a process of interstitial differentiation, in which agency is inside action rather than in front of it. This calls for a “turn” that is not ontological but ontogenetic, leading us to conceive of the one world as neither a universe nor a fractiverse but as a pluriverse
Destiny in hindsight: Impotentiality and intentional action in contemporary Yemen
No full textZaydis are a Shiite sect, widespread in Highland Yemen, that upholds a doctrine of free will and human accountability. However, in everyday discursive practices, they indulge in a widespread usage of a destiny-related language. Building on this apparent contradiction, this article investigates how social actors give meaning to critical durations of their life through the distinction between qadar and nasib, thus investigating the interplay of intentionality and temporality. Moving away from the English gloss destiny, the article argues that the distinction between qadar (the power to act within limits fixed by God’s decree) and nasib (the actualization of this potential) describes a critical duration characterized by uncertain futures and multiaspectual moralities. Narratives organized by references to nasib can thus be interpreted as ex post facto ethical reflections through which social actors “step back” and rationalize their past lived experience
Multiplication through division: Value, time, and prosperity in Indonesia
No full textThe paper explores contemporary practices of value multiplication among Muslims in Indonesia, paying particular attention to the rise to public prominence of “the mathematics of almsgiving.” This approach to giving alms provides the faithful with a systematic method of achieving prosperity in both this world and the after life through encouraging them to divide up their property, spread it around, and share it with others. Such practices are held to have the miraculous effect of ensuring that the parted property will eventually return in a multiplied form. Much of this effect is mediated by a literalist understanding of the Quranand the rendering of alms as an investment carrying the promise of divine increase
Decomposing numbers
No full textRejoinder to Vilaça, Aparecida. 2018, “The devil and the hidden life of numbers: Translations and transformations in Amazonia.” Hau: Journal of Ethographic Theory 8 (1): 6–1