Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Camel visions through needle eyes
Deconstructing Epistemological Ontology
Abstract
There is much thinking about the construction of 'alterity' and 'exoticism' in anthropology, but the discourse on these issues is itself grounded within a dualistic perspective that distinguishes such tropes as 'alterity' and 'exoticism'. It is suggested that the essential construction of alterity depends on the "epistemologization" of others' ontologies, while the Western ontology that grounds this process remains unarticulated.
The present research proposal analyzes past and current struggles of anthropology to extricate itself from the impossible quandary of aspiring to preserve alterity while leveling difference, foster indigenous colors while promulgating a universalist perspective – and suggests a study of anthropology that is explicitly grounded in an alternative 'alienized' ontology that rejects anthropology's epistemologically-orientated ontology.
1. Selfhood vs. Alterity
Anthropologists have been constantly defining and redefining the boundaries between self and others – wherein "the self", the Western persona, is often perceived as encroaching on the premises of "the other", so that it behooves anthropology to tread softly so as not to disrupt the fragile entities of others.
The "others" themselves often joined the discourse by becoming less "alien", especially within the context of world globalization. "The awareness that the search for radical otherness contained a political component," writes Peirano, "allowed 'indigenous' anthropologies to enter the scene during the 1970s." [1]
As more and more formerly "indigenous" sites became involved in the general concourse of anthropology as a discipline, it often seemed that the distinction between "object-West" and "subject-native" was being eroded. Peirano writes that, "in places where anthropology was ratified locally via social sciences during the 1940s and 1950s (e.g.
Indeed, once an "alter" is trained in the theories and practices of anthropology it becomes co-opted by the very construction that set up alterity in the first place, and promptly loses his/her alterity. Peirano writes that for Diamond[3], "professional anthropology was an instance of diffusion by domination, meaning that 'an Indian or African anthropologist, trained in this Western technique, does not behave as an Indian or African when he behaves as an anthropologist… he lives and thinks as an academic European" (1980b:11-12)". [4]
Although there are some pretensions to indigenous anthropologies (and Pierano's aforementioned article, which advocates a localized "Brazilian" anthropology is a case in point), both the form and content of discourse seem to indicate that these are merely mirror-sites of the discipline that add geographic variety and local color to the core paradigm of the discipline. Once an Indian is inducted in the practices and perspectives of Western Anthropology he/she is no longer a representative of indigenous culture – but a hopefully colorful outpost of the central perspective.
2. Dissident voices
Once it became clear that anthropology itself was not the transparently scientistic discipline that modernity would make it out to be, but rather a tangible pole in the various dichotomies of observer/observed, object/subject, self/others, identity/differance, etc., the discipline began its introspective epoch. "In
3. Attempts at disengagement
Try as one might to shape an anthropology of anthropology, the specter of the West is always there, always ready to possess the would-be-practitioner who offers up his/her self to the induction of the discipline. Thus, although "a characteristic feature of anthropology in
"In contemporary anthropology", writes
Yet these voices themselves, struggle as they do to extricate themselves from the subjectivist mire of historicity, are more in the line of a ventriloquist's act than viable and distinct voices, for they are all, including the introspective discourse itself, grounded in western traditions. Even when "indigenous anthropologists" do their "own thing" in their own countries and in their own languages, they are merely creating variations on a theme: "… in Brazil" writes Peirano, "… from the 1980s on anthropologists have launched a wave of studies on the social sciences themselves, with the overall purpose of understanding science as a manifestation of modernity… In these studies, one striking feature is that the vast majority deal with broad issues related to Western intellectual traditions but, because they are published in Portuguese have a limited audience… Nonetheless they fulfill the pre-formative function of ideologically linking Brazilian social scientists to the larger world."[11]
These "local" studies are replicating the essential paradigms of the West. Geography does not matter for anthropology, all one needs is an "alter", someone on whom one may inflict the specific outlook, philosophy and practices of anthropology. From this point of view, one may sum up the anthropological project as the desperate search of the disenchanted for the ways in which the non-disenchanted construct their vaunted enchantment.
Wherever there is ontology – anthropology is there to deconstruct it. Wherever human groups are embedded in ontologies – anthropologists can prey on them, and wherever a person becomes detached from his "home" ontology and distances himself into the epistemic position – he may be termed "anthropologist", wherever he may be[12].
The manufacture of the anthropological perspective requires an induction in detachment: "…we must grant," writes Peirano, "that academic knowledge, however socially produced, is relatively autonomous from its immediate contexts of production and therefore is capable of attaining desirable levels of communications". [13]
In other words, academic knowledge, by definition, is dis-embedded from its ontological stratum – academic knowledge is supposed to colorless and odorless, a magnificent ontological edifice, whose ivory tower provides a panoramic view that makes all the rest mere epistemologies.
"…Second," writes Peirano hopefully, "we must accept that rigorous comparison, rather than uncontrolled relativism, is the best guarantee against superficial homogenization across national and cultural boundaries" [14]
An 'homogenization' that will, in fact, never be superficial, for it is the most radical transformation that a person of any culture can possibly undergo: That chilling-thrilling moment when ontology is transformed into epistemology!
The moment when enchantment becomes dis-enchantment and belief becomes dis-belief. This is the deepest homogenization possible!
4. Anthropology Essentials
Obviously, the single most salient feature of anthropology as an academic discipline - what grounds it in the project of modernity and garnishes it with the mantle of non-voyeurism, non-puerility, is Weberian disenchantment.
Weberian disenchantment arising directly from the swift transformations wrought in European epistemologies in the course of the 19th century, is deeply rooted in the Cartesian tradition of radical solipsistic doubt, which leads to the inevitable conclusion: All is epistemology, and the direct consequence is that wonder and magic, which are forever rooted in ontologies, simply fade away.
When Vivieros de Castro interviews the Awarate in order to learn how they establish identity through the alterity of their enemy's eyes, it is Vivieros de Castro himself, capable of constructing Awarate ontology as an epistemology, who becomes the alter. His informants and their enemies, the eternal cycle of devourers and devoured are both well entrenched in an ontology[15], as Vivieros de Castro testifies (in regard to animism): "Animism is surely an ontology, concerned with being and not with how we come to know it." [16]
5. Epistemological Ontology
The default perspective of anthropology as a discipline when it attempts to formulate an ontology, i.e., a theory regarding the "Real World" or the "World as It Is", is the assumption that what 'other' peoples perceive as "the real" is in fact a mental construct. In other words, once the anthropological perspective is applied the "real" of "others" is radically transformed into an "epistemology" of others. Although these "others" consider themselves situated in an ontology, i.e., a description of reality, the anthropologist "knows" that such visions are in fact epistemologies, and these epistemologies become the subject matter of anthropology: the analysis of the epistemologies of others who deem their perceptions to be "real".
What is the real?
Is there an anthropological ontology, or is everything just an endless relativist epistemological reflection of … of what?
Were anthropology to define that "what", that "real" which fills the epistemologies of "others", it would also become like those others – holder of an ontology that is (in truth) mere epistemology… and there goes the snake, biting its tale again.
How does one escape this trap, these endless reflections in parallel mirrors? How may one stabilize the system?
One choice way is to simply ignore the paradox, i.e., judge all other epistemologies except the one that grounds anthropology.
What then would be "the real" of such blind vision? Simple enough: something that doesn't exist. One cannot ask questions about "the real", one cannot speak of ontologies, for both the subject and his/her questions about the real, belong to the realm of the epistemic, and this becomes the ultimate ontology – a reality that is unreal, an ontology that is epistemological.
The anthropological epistemology is the ontology of the discipline, i.e., the perception of everything as epistemic constructs an ontology, creates a theory of reality. A theory about the world.
This then is the 'world' constructed by the anthropological vision: it is epistemic.
And when the "enchanted" parts of the world grow increasingly "disenchanted", their vision gradually assimilates that of the main anthropological paradigm: "…notions of 'homes and abroads, community insides and outsides, fields and metropoles are increasingly challenged by post-exotic, decolonizing trends'".[17]
Indeed, post-exotic and decolonizing trends that continue to eradicate all differences and appropriate local cultures into anthropology's world of discourse, but never the obverse. All is so gently done, the exotic is now caressed as a beloved familiar and the once colonized is potted at home… and difference is effaced and obliterated in an all-leveling disenchantment which is a highly insidious brand of Western colonialism.
6. Animism – A Case in Point
The way in which "epistemological discourse" constructs the anthropological enterprise is well demonstrated by a discussion of animism.
In a 1999 article, Bird-David presents a critique of a number of interpretations of animism, mainly from the point of view that they have privileged various forms of 'modernist' and 'dualist' perceptions.
Bird-David And argues that: "Classical theoreticians… attributed their own modernist ideas of self to "primitive peoples" while asserting that the "primitive peoples" read their idea of self into others! This led the theoreticians to prejudge the attribution of "personhood" to natural objects as empirically unfounded and consequently to direct analytical effort to explaining why people did it and why and how (against all appearances) their 'belief' was not a part of their practical knowledge but at best a part of their symbolic representations or a mistaken strategic guess." [18]
The attribution of Western ideas to the analysis of indigenous inhabitants is the main problem besetting the striving of anthropology to manifest the 'objective' perspective that vindicates its constitution as a "science". Bird-David's re-analysis of animism, from a perspective that strives to do away with Western 'dualist' bias, is one such attempt, in which she surveys a number of anthropological perspectives used to analyze cultures with animistic content, finding fault with them all. Thus, Bird-David points to the fallacies of Tylor who: "…read into the primitive view the modernist spiritualist understanding of 'one's own nature,' not the primitive's or the child's sense of his own nature… ", she points to the same epistemological error in Durkheim, who: "…rescued the primitive from the Tylorian image of a delirious human, but in doing so he embroiled himself further in the modernist self model(s)…. " and indicated that Claude Levi-Strauss also falls into the same dichotomy by failing to: "…question the authority of the Western objectivist view of reality, which accepted a priori the nature/society dualism…."[19]
Throughout here critique, animism is presented by Bird-David as an epistemology, as a projection of the observer's subjectivity onto reality. The problem is succinctly stated by Galibert: "The epistemic continuum of anthropology extends 'ideally' from the position of a detached observer to that of an implicated actor. Yet this sketch raises questions. From the side of detached observation, do not structures and forms take the place of the actor, who becomes, so to speak, the observer verifying his own models? Is not participant observation self-limiting when it posits the ideal of fusion of consciousness, which forbids it from asking the question of otherness?"[20]
Both sides of the 'epistemic continuum' firmly belong to Western dualism. Both the question of detached objectivity and the desire for 'fusion of consciousness' are distinctly Western visions. Only a post-colonial Western-trained anthropologist may yearn for the self-effacing shedding of all self-distinction in favor of fusion with the 'field'. A field that may never be so fused with – as its indigenous actors would not conceive of such a bizarre idea.
Thus, the discourse on animism is circling the same focal point, without touching it, for the very ground of the learned discussion is the "received view" regarding the nature of the world in which both anthropologist, scholars and the indigenous people are all grounded – i.e., the view that views "animism" as an epistemology rather than an ontology – and is thus forever alienated from the actual perception of the research subject – for which animism is indeed an "ontology". This has been remarked on by Viveiros de Castro who commented that: "The massive conversion of ontological questions into epistemological ones is the hallmark of modernist philosophy." And that "Anthropologists persist in thinking that in order to explain a non-Western ontology we must derive it from (or reduce it to) an epistemology. Animism is surely an ontology, concerned with being and not with how we come to know it." [21]
Such voices critiquing the very basis of Western ontology, are being increasingly heard, such as Linda Dwyer's study of the
Viveiros de Castro claims that the relational epistemology posited by Bird David is ontologized "…in terms of a concept of human nature which is firmly situated within the modernist privileging of epistemology." [23]
Closer examination, however, may show that epistemology is not just 'privileged' in the West, but is in fact the West's 'ontology', with all the implications of such an ontology, and with the added twist that it is 'transparent'.
The view that animism is an epistemology is in this sense a 'given', something that is 'beyond doubt'. A construction that is taken for granted in the sense pointed out by Berger and Luckman, and may be perceived in Bird-David's response to Viveiros de-Castro when she writes that: "Viveiros de Castro confuses local and students' perspectives, while a plurality of perspectives and ways of knowing demands keeping them separate in mind and carefully shifting between them to suit context and purpose." [24]
When Bird-David carefully distinguishes between "local and students' perspectives", she clearly privileges Western civilization – for in fact both context and purpose are very clear: the "students'" perspective maintains the objectivist Western position, while the "locals" are engaged in relational epistemologies.
7. An Alternative Paradigm
What is the world 'really' like?
What is our being-in-the-world situation vis-à-vis our perception of it?
Is there an ontology outside our cave, of which our epistemologies are but shadows?
In the West, (or according to the 'modernist' project), the ontology may be roughly summarized as follows: the world is non-sentient and inanimate, alien and cold – that is the given – how we perceive it (the stories we tell ourselves about the given) – that is epistemology.
This conceptual bundle, including the view that we are forever doomed to epistemologies, constitutes Western ontology.
This is the ground of all Western analyses and theorizing. The trap within which we revolve.
However, perhaps it may be possible to establish a different ontology, thus creating a different paradigm for theorizing about humans and reality.
If it becomes possible to establish an ontological paradigm that views animism, for example, as the "true view" and Western skepticism and science as the bias that has to be explained away, we may place our entire perception on a new footing.
Rather, than explain the Nayakan vision of devaru as a "relational epistemology" – thus destroying its credence as an ontology, can a member of the Nayaka, explain the strange proclivity of anthropologists to deny the reality of "devaru" and explain them in functional means.
Can a Nayakan, explain Bird-David's own "dualist epistemology" as fulfilling a function, in the same way that she explain Nayakan "relational epistemology" as filling a function.
It is always what is perceived as an ontology – what is perceive as the 'true' and 'objective' 'truth' about the world, that grounds anthroplogists' ability to analyze epistemologies. Even if the reigning Western epistemology is the absence of all ontology – it is still a view about reality taken to be 'objective' and thus constitutes an ontology in its own right.
It is entirely possible to posit an ontology – as an axiom about how reality is in "itself" - and then examine an array of culture-mediated epistemologies that strive to map that ontology.[25]
In other words, if an ontology can be posited of which various cultural epistemologies may be approximations, then a paradigm may be established regarding the evolution of epistemologies vis a vis said ontology.
8. The Suggested Ontology and its Implications
One non-Western ontology that both gives credence to the 'spirit animating' the world and eschews dualism is to be found in the writings of Rabbi Kook, who writes:
"A person stands perplexed as to the need for so many different and diverse actions and creatures, and does not understand how all is a single great unity. The sleepy life[26] of the inanimate[27] are the beginning flash that glows increasingly bright within the plant[28] world, where they[29] diverges into millions of unique and different lines, until they reach the sacred temple of life[30], where they already sparkle in delight, continuing to rise to the crowning peak of the world's creatures, man, whose entire life essence, the currents of his life's lights and the perseverance of his rising spiritual trend, are but large sea waves, which come and go by force of all life's movements within reality, from their tiny beginnings to their greatness, from speechless matter to speaking humanity".[31]
Obviously such an ontology would approach the 'epistemology' of animism from a very different perspective than that of modernist dualism. For example, it may be posited that the soul/life of the cosmos may be said to appear in revelations, or more precisely, is manifested through myriad epistemologies which only glimpse at reality-as-is, which like quantum physics' wave/particle may manifest something to the observer which is forever beyond human perception (as mathematically proven – see the famous EPR-Copenhagen School debate), but which people like the Nayaka naturally relate to as part of their lives.
Ultimately, it seems that by Bird-David's very advocacy of "animism as a valid means to knowledge" she casts animism in an epistemological mode. Her basic assumption seems to be that there is no devaru, there is no ontology – it is just epistemology.[32] Certainly, at the very least this view is alienated towards how the Nayaka may perceive themselves, as they obviously treat their 'devaru' as ontologically present.
9. Research proposal
Obviously, the proposed analysis here is colored by my own personal embracing of Hebrew religion as an ontology rather than an epistemology. A philosophical and existential position that automatically alienates me from mainstream Western culture.
I believe the world is essentially non-dualistic and non-inanimate. I believe the Nayaka and other people routinely construed as an "exotic other", are on to something important about the nature of reality.
I would like to place a suggested alternative ontology 'up-front', positing it as an alternative perspective to the usual one adopted by the academic discipline of anthropology.
Such a research paradigm is patently at odds with the prevailing ontology of academia: the tacit understanding that one may only speak of 'ways of knowing', of alternative epistemologies, without privileging any such way to the extent that it becomes an 'ontology'.
As Walters briefly captured the issue: "… enthnography is not so much 'proving' conclusions about a culture as it is constructing a story out of the ethnographer's own ways of making meaning."[33]
Not all, however is epistemology: "A social structure", writes Vivieros de Castro, "is not an empirical resultant, but the formal cause of certain aspects of the praxis of a particular human group; moreover, it operates on multiple semantic materials."[34]
Thus the discipline of anthropology itself, situated as it is within the social structure of academia and Western hegemony, operates on multiple semantic materials, which may be amenable to an "alienized" analysis.
Rather than adopt a "fusion" participant-observer stance or a "scientistic" pseudo-objectivist position, I would explicitly approach the discipline of anthropology from an alienized perspective that rejects its epistemologically-orientated ontology.
A number of research avenues seem to present themselves:
- Analyze the anthropological discussion of 'alterity', 'exoticism', etc. for indications of the dualistic-epistemological loop in which the discipline is inextricably trapped. One may take such tropes as 'animism' as a given, as an ontology, and then survey the literature relating to animism and Shamanism, attempting to reinterpret the literature by analyzing the embedded perspectives of the anthropological practitioners.
- Conduct a field study of the induction process of anthropological neophytes as they enter the profession. How are they inducted into the 'epistemological' world vision – the ultimate relativization of their native ontologies and their assumption of the hegemonic 'professional perspective' of their adopted discipline. Of particular interest in this regard would be anthropology students from originally non-Westernized and/or non-Christian cultures.
- Study and analyze the ground of the anthropological discipline itself as a product of Christian-Western civilization. Applying an 'alienated' perspective that is specifically grounded in a Jewish ontology to the development of Weberian theory within German Lutheran society – and the "disenchanted" view that grounds so much of anthropological practice as a product of religious transformation and change within Europe, especially of the reformation, explicating Moore and Sander's insight that: "Anthropology has its roots ethically, practically, analytically and institutionally…in the west. It can critique that history, to be sure, but it cannot completely disavow it."[35]
- A further avenue of study, perhaps a variation of proposal no. 3 above, would be to examine those aspects of anthropological perspective that are firmly grounded in Christian models of personhood and the way such models are constructed as non-reflective 'givens' about reality. This analysis could include a comparison of constructions of personhood and alterity in Judaism and Christianity and then point to the extent that anthropology as a discipline adopts one construct rather than another, and the implications of such adoption.
I think the innovation of the proposed study is in its possible contribution to the theoretical clarity of the ongoing dialogue within the Discipline of Anthropology – elaborating on the theme presented by Moore & Sanders: "Anthropology is not anthropology because it studies kinship or cognition or politics or art, nor because it is has had practitioners who are structuralists or post-structuralists. What is distinctive about anthropology is the way it has created and constructed itself, the particular history of the formation of ideas that have given rise to a distinctive discipline and a set of associated practices."[36] It is these ideas and practices I would like to address from within an alienized view of Western ontology.
References
Berger, P.L. (1969). The sacred Canopy - Elements of a sociological theory of religion.
Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91
Dwyer, L.E. (1999). History Meaning and Power in the
Gailbert, C. (2004). Some preliminary notes on actor-observer anthropology. International Social Science Journal (English Edition).
הראי"ה קוק, אורות הקודש, חלק ב', עמ' שסא, חטיבת הדצח"מ.
Lindenbaum, S. (2004). Thinking About Cannibalism. Annual Review of Anthropology.
Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. BlackWell Publishing, p.19.
Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (1992). From the Enemy's Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society. Translated by Catherine V. Howard.
Vivieros de Castro, P. (1999). Comment on Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91.
Walters, K. (1999). Representing the Empire: Conventions of Representation from Enlightment to Contemporary Composition Studies. M.A. Dissertation.
Suggested further reading
Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against culture. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Appadurai, A. (2000). Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Becker, E. (1971). The Lost Science of
Bourdieu, P. (1990). Objectification Objectified. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Dhareshwar, V. (1998). Valorizing the Present: Orientalism, Postcoloniality and the Human Sciences. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Diamond, S. (1980). Anthropological Traditions: The Participants Observed. Pp. 2-
Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes its Object.
Fahim, H., ed. (1982). Indigenous Anthropology in Non-Western Countries.
Geertz C. (1983). Local Knowledge: Further Essay in Interpretive Anthropology.
Gerholm T. & Hannerz, U. (1982). The shaping of national anthropologies in Ethnos 42 (Special Issue).
Knauft, M. (2002). Critically Modern Alternatives, Alterities, Anthropologies.
Hall, S., ed. (1992). Formations of Modernity.
Hallowell, AI. (1974). The history of anthropology as an anthropological problem. In Darnell, R. (1974),
Latour, B. (1993). Relativism. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
McGrane BD. 1976. Beyond
Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
[1] Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.106.
[2] Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.106-107.
[3] Referring to Diamond, S. (1980). Anthropological Traditions: The Participants Observed. Pp. 2-
[4] Peirano, M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.108.
[5] Referring to Hallowell, AI. (1974). The history of anthropology as an anthropological problem. In Darnell, R. (1974),
[6] Referring to McGrane BD. 1976. Beyond
[7] Referring to Gerholm T. & Hannerz, U. (1982). The shaping of national anthropologies in Ethnos 42 (Special Issue).
[8] Peirano, M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.110.
[9] Peirano, Ibid, p.116.
[10] Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. BlackWell Publishing, p.xvi.
[11] Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.121.
[12] And this of course is the 'secret' of Cultural Studies.
[13] Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.123.
[14] Peirano, Ibid, p.123.
[15] If you're going to go about eating people and expecting them to serve themselves up for lunch too, you'd better have a good ontology on hand…
[16] Vivieros de Castro, P. (1999). Comment on Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91.
[17] Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.112.
[18] Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91
[19] Bird-David, N. (1999). Ibid.
[20] Gailbert, C. (2004). Some preliminary notes on actor-observer anthropology. International Social Science Journal (English Edition).
[21] Vivieros de Castro, P. (1999). Comment on Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91.
[22] Dwyer, L.E. (1999). History Meaning and Power in the
[23] Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91.
[24] Bird-David, N. (1999). Ibid.
[25] Indeed, this is what is being done with the dualist ontology – for the question asked is how animist cultures perceive this given reality.
[26] Life in general is singular in English, but plural in Hebrew חיים. This distinction is important for the ontological paradigm we are attempting to delineate, in that 'plural' life is perceived as a general spirit appearing in endless forms, appropriately addressed by the pronoun: "they"; while 'singular' life is more apt for the concept of some specific animation owned by a single creature, addressed by the mechanical "it".
[27] Note how this very language addressing the world of matter is already laden with the dualism we are trying to avoid. A more literal translation of the Hebrew word דומם would be: "the silent" as well as the "unmoving".
[28] Here again, the prison-house of the English language privileges dualistic visions – as the word "plant' indicates function and passivity in the hands of the planter – while the Hebrew word צמח denotes the growing/developing aspect…
[29] I have chosen to maintain life in the plural, so as to remain close to the semantic content, even though it is somewhat ungrammatical in English.
[30] The intention is: בעלי חיים, נפש חיה i.e., animals.
[31] מתוך: הראי"ה קוק, אורות הקודש, חלק ב', עמ' שסא, חטיבת הדצח"מ. הקטע המלא בעברית הוא כדלהלן: "החים התרדמתיים שבדומם הם התחלת הברק ההולך ומזהיר בתוך העולם הצמחני, מתפלג לאלפי רבבות קוים, מיוחדים ושונים, באים הם עד מקדש החיים, ושם הם מתנוצצים כבר בעליצות, הולכים ועולים עד רום עטרת ברואי עולם, האדם, שכל מהות חייו, זרמי אורותיהם והתמדת הלך נפשו העולה למעלה, הם הם רק גלי ים גדולים, שהם הולכים ושבים מכחם של כל תנועות החיים שבמציאות. מראשית הקטנות של החיים עד גדולתם, מדומם עד המדבר."
[32] And this obviously is the main 'forte' of the West (or what is termed modernity), the very heart of 'disenchantment'.
[33] Walters, K. (1999). Representing the Empire: Conventions of Representation from Enlightment to Contemporary Composition Studies. M.A. Dissertation.
[34] Viveiros de Castro, E. (1992). From the Enemy's Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society. Translated by Catherine V. Howard.
[35] Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. BlackWell Publishing, p.19.
[36] Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. BlackWell Publishing, p. xii.
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