HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
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The elusive bridge
No full textComment on Turner, Terence. 2017. “Beauty and the beast: The fearful symmetry of the jaguar and other natural beings in Kayapo ritual and myth.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (2): 51–70
Rethinking anthropology’s tricks of the trade: From a comparative anthropology to an anthropology of comparison
No full textComment on Jones, Graham M. 2017. Magic’s reason: An anthropology of analogy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Aftermaths and recuperations in anthropology (The 2016 Sir James George Frazer Memorial Lecture)
No full textThe Frazer Lecture was launched in 1921, with the support of scholars from all over Europe, explicitly in the context of the “meeting on common ground” after World War I. In the spirit of anthropologists examining postdisaster processes of any kind, to meet with scholars from other disciplines for mutual illumination, and to revisit its own rich intellectual and empirical archive, my lecture explored processes of recuperation. Recuperation is selective of elements rather than rescuing whole systems, then followed by creative reconfiguration. Sources from classics, recent philosophically inspired anthropology, new ethnography of Africa, and postwar Vietnam are examined as examples that pick up the spirit of the Frazer Lecture itself
Anthropology is the discipline but the goal is ethnography
No full textIn this debate piece, I argue that there is something more important than the discipline of anthropology, and that is the ability of anthropologists to study the world through ethnography and transmit that understanding back to global populations as education. An inwardly directed concern only with our discipline can sometimes constrain both of these tasks
The limits of “ontology” and the unfinished work of “ideology”
No full textComment on Kipnis, Andrew. “Governing the souls of Chinese modernity” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (2): 217–238
The value of anthropology
No full textComment on van der Veer, Peter. 2016. The value of comparison. Durham, NC: Duke University Press
How to distinguish a wink from a twitch
No full textComment on Duranti, Alessandro. 2015. The anthropology of intentions: Language in a world of others. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Ontology with Chinese characteristics: Homology as a mode of identification
No full textThis article describes the cosmological and ontological assumptions of diviners in contemporary China with a view to contributing to current anthropological debates on ontology. Ethnographic examples demonstrate that divination based on the cosmology of the Yi Jing assumes a monist ontology characterized by continuity of physicality and interiority. This argument is supported by discussions of cosmogony and the separability of the person. The correlative character of Yi Jing cosmology assumes that resemblances between entities and phenomena are based on shared intrinsic characteristics rather than analogies. In relation to Philippe Descola’s (2013) proposal of four modes of identification, this system posits continuity of physicality and interiority on a cosmic scale. It therefore constitutes a mode of identification—here labeled “Homologism,” unaccounted for by this model—in which it logically displaces Totemism as the structural counterpoint to Analogism
Baipurangi’s dreams: The interface between ethnography and psychoanalysis in the work of Lucien Sebag
No full textLucien Sebag’s “Analysis of the dreams of a Guayaki Indian woman” appeared in Les Temps modernes in 1964. Never before translated into English, and never reprinted even in French, it marked a unique effort to combine ethnography among the Aché people of Paraguay with structural theory and psychoanalysis. This essay is an attempt to help orient the reader of Sebag’s work by sketching its context in the theoretical conjuncture of the times, in Sebag’s life and the body of his work, and in the history of the Aché people
Decentering
No full textComment on Sahlins, Marshall. 2017. “The original political society.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7 (2): 91–128