Can a theory be extrapolated based solely on a single ethnographic study? Can the examination of ... more Can a theory be extrapolated based solely on a single ethnographic study? Can the examination of a single form of ritual suffice to create a blanket research method which is applicable to all forms of ritual? Is meaning merely a construct which participants lull themselves into believing that ritual possesses? And does intentionality have an effect on the consideration of meaning within ritual? I will attempt to elucidate several aspects of the responses to these questions within the context of James Laidlaw and Caroline Humphrey’s work, The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. I will also comment upon and demonstrate the difficulties inherent in the creation of the authors’ model of ritual theory.
The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This b... more The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This book argues that it represents not just a new subfield within anthropology but a conceptual renewal of the discipline as a whole, enabling it to take account of a major dimension of human conduct which social theory has so far failed adequately to address. An ideal introduction for students and researchers in anthropology and related human sciences. • Shows how ethical concepts such as virtue, character, freedom and responsibility may be incorporated into anthropological analysis • Surveys the history of anthropology's engagement with morality • Examines the relevance for anthropology of two major philosophical approaches to moral life
ABSTRACT This article argues that there is an epistemological style associated with much American... more ABSTRACT This article argues that there is an epistemological style associated with much American evangelical Christianity that is strikingly different from that found in never-secular Christianities. This epistemological style is characterized by a playful, self-consciously paradoxical framing of belief-claims in which God’s reality is both clearly affirmed and qualified. One can describe this style as using an “epistemological double register” in which God is described as very real—and as doubted, in some way. The representation of God generated by this complex style is a magically real or hyper-real God, both more real than everyday reality and in some way fictive. The article goes on to argue that these epistemological features can be understood as generated by and generative of particular theories of mind. The article argues for the development of an anthropological theory of mind in which at least four dimensions are important: boundedness, interiority, sensorium, and epistemic stance.
Talks by Caroline Humphrey, Keith Thomas, Peter Burke and Jack Goody (read by James Laidlaw), wit... more Talks by Caroline Humphrey, Keith Thomas, Peter Burke and Jack Goody (read by James Laidlaw), with reply by Alan Macfarlane. Filmed on 4th July 2009 in King's College, Cambridge by Zilan Wang and edited by Alan Macfarlane.
The aim of these two volumes is to bring together a representative selection of the writings of E... more The aim of these two volumes is to bring together a representative selection of the writings of Edmund Leach (1910-1989), a brilliant and prolific anthropologist known not only in his field but to the educated public at large. Leach perceived anthropology as a vital and broadly based study of the human condition, encompassing methods and ideas from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. His writings reflect the conviction that anthropology is of direct and practical importance to social policy and political debate. These two volumes present more than fifty items-many difficult to obtain and several never before published-displaying the considerable range of Leach's anthropological interests, the debates he provoked, and the issues he championed. Volume 1 Anthropology and Society contains a selection of Leach's writings on "society," taken largely though not exclusively from the early part of his career. Here his writings on social structure,...
The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This b... more The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This book argues that it represents not just a new subfield within anthropology but a conceptual renewal of the discipline as a whole, enabling it to take account of a major dimension of human conduct which social theory has so far failed adequately to address. An ideal introduction for students and researchers in anthropology and related human sciences. r Shows how ethical concepts such as virtue, character, freedom and responsibility may be incorporated into anthropological analysis r Surveys the history of anthropology's engagement with morality r Examines the relevance for anthropology of two major philosophical approaches to moral life
News of this book has been circulating well in advance of its publication, and it has been widely... more News of this book has been circulating well in advance of its publication, and it has been widely and eagerly anticipated. The many anthropologists who have been enthused and excited, as well as those who have been provoked or mystified, by various earlier manifestations of 'the ontological turn' have looked forward to a comprehensive and authoritative statement of its principles and programme. This book certainly provides that, and gives a virtuoso performance in doing so. It positively bristles with enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas. It is engaging and inventive, spirited, combative, self-consciously contentious, and clearly driven by a restless, proselytising spirit, but it also sets out not just to dazzle with its conspicuous cleverness but also to persuade by serious argument. It succeeds in a good deal of what it sets out to do, and even those who are least convinced will be given a good deal to think about along the way. It ought to be widely read-really, anyone who thinks seriously about the nature of anthropology will want to read it-and it will certainly change the terms of debate. This it will do for several reasons, not least that its contents will come to so many as a surprise. The prospect of nature being multiple, of the ethnographic record presenting us with multiple worlds of 'radical alterity' in places such as Amazonia, Melanesia, and northern Mongolia, each of which requires its own radically new concepts aligned with its radically other ontology: this was what many followers of 'the turn' have found most exciting and compelling. They are swiftly disabused of these fantasies in this book. From the outset, Holbraad and Pedersen are clear that this new updated version of the ontological turn makes no metaphysical claims. It is now a 'strictly methodological proposal' (p. ix), which may come as a shock to those who took away from Thinking Through Things (Henare, Holbraad, & Wastell 2007) the idea that 'epistemology' was little short of a human rights abuse. It is necessary, say Holbraad and Pedersen, to move on from debates around what they call the 'first wave' of manifestations of the turn, 'including some of our own writings'. Understandably, and on the whole justifiably, they do not dwell for long on just what in those earlier writings gave rise to such widespread 'misunderstandings' (although it may be going just a wee bit too far in self-exculpation to say that multiple worlds and plural ontologies were 'flirted with' [p. 156] in texts in which they occupied centre-stage theoretically, and often appeared in the titles). The important thing is that the revision be clear, and the new position understood. So Holbraad and Pedersen helpfully recommend that the word 'ontological' be used only adjectivally; 'never as a noun!' they almost shout from the page, and therefore never in the plural. The concept of 'the ontological' is now to serve wholly as a signal that the question of what kind of theoretical vocabulary we use should remain resolutely open, and open specifically to influence from ethnographic data. It is a call to a special and demanding form of
Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; Buddha’s Light Mountain), an international Buddhist movement headquartered in... more Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; Buddha’s Light Mountain), an international Buddhist movement headquartered in Taiwan, regularly runs what it calls a short-term monastic cultivation retreat, a week-long residential program designed to provide lay members with an opportunity for intensive cultivation (修養; xiuyang or 修行; xiuxing). Contributions to the anthropology of ethics have recently drawn sharp distinctions between ordered, systematic ethics associated especially with religious traditions, and the compromise and accommodation that result from the exigencies of everyday life. This retreat, we argue, shows that the experience of ethical shortcomings can be a positive instrument and aspect of religious striving. While much debate in the anthropology of ethics assumes an a priori conceptual framework that opposes ordinary or everyday exigency to ordered transcendence, exigency and order in the Fo Guang Shan retreat are instead mutually constitutive and dynamically related. Here, failing and being...
Comment on Keane, Webb. 2016. Ethical life: Its natural and social histories. Princeton, NJ: Prin... more Comment on Keane, Webb. 2016. Ethical life: Its natural and social histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chapter 2 What if There is No Elephant? Towards a Conception of an Un-sited Field1 Joanna Cook, J... more Chapter 2 What if There is No Elephant? Towards a Conception of an Un-sited Field1 Joanna Cook, James Laidlaw and Jonathan Mair A group of Brahmins is engaged in quarrelsome dispute about the nature of reality. The Buddha tells them a story-the parable of the blind men and ...
A group of Brahmins is engaged in quarrelsome dispute about the nature of reality. The Buddha tel... more A group of Brahmins is engaged in quarrelsome dispute about the nature of reality. The Buddha tells them a story – the parable of the blind men and the elephant – as follows (Udana 6.4; see Masefield 1994, 128ff). A king orders all the men in his kingdom who have been blind from birth to be brought together and led before him, each having been partially introduced to an elephant, by each being given just one part of the elephant’s body to handle. The king then asks each of these people what kind of thing is an elephant. Those who had felt its head replied that an elephant is like a pot. Those who had held its ear said it resembled a winnowing basket. Those who had held only the trunk likened it to a plough, and so on. Then, just like the Brahmins, the blind men began to quarrel. The parable is used in the Buddhist text to warn against trying to reach conclusions about the nature of reality on the basis only of the partial view of the unenlightened. The original idea behind multi-sit...
Comment on Ortner, Sherry. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties.” H... more Comment on Ortner, Sherry. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73.
Can a theory be extrapolated based solely on a single ethnographic study? Can the examination of ... more Can a theory be extrapolated based solely on a single ethnographic study? Can the examination of a single form of ritual suffice to create a blanket research method which is applicable to all forms of ritual? Is meaning merely a construct which participants lull themselves into believing that ritual possesses? And does intentionality have an effect on the consideration of meaning within ritual? I will attempt to elucidate several aspects of the responses to these questions within the context of James Laidlaw and Caroline Humphrey’s work, The Archetypal Actions of Ritual. I will also comment upon and demonstrate the difficulties inherent in the creation of the authors’ model of ritual theory.
The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This b... more The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This book argues that it represents not just a new subfield within anthropology but a conceptual renewal of the discipline as a whole, enabling it to take account of a major dimension of human conduct which social theory has so far failed adequately to address. An ideal introduction for students and researchers in anthropology and related human sciences. • Shows how ethical concepts such as virtue, character, freedom and responsibility may be incorporated into anthropological analysis • Surveys the history of anthropology's engagement with morality • Examines the relevance for anthropology of two major philosophical approaches to moral life
ABSTRACT This article argues that there is an epistemological style associated with much American... more ABSTRACT This article argues that there is an epistemological style associated with much American evangelical Christianity that is strikingly different from that found in never-secular Christianities. This epistemological style is characterized by a playful, self-consciously paradoxical framing of belief-claims in which God’s reality is both clearly affirmed and qualified. One can describe this style as using an “epistemological double register” in which God is described as very real—and as doubted, in some way. The representation of God generated by this complex style is a magically real or hyper-real God, both more real than everyday reality and in some way fictive. The article goes on to argue that these epistemological features can be understood as generated by and generative of particular theories of mind. The article argues for the development of an anthropological theory of mind in which at least four dimensions are important: boundedness, interiority, sensorium, and epistemic stance.
Talks by Caroline Humphrey, Keith Thomas, Peter Burke and Jack Goody (read by James Laidlaw), wit... more Talks by Caroline Humphrey, Keith Thomas, Peter Burke and Jack Goody (read by James Laidlaw), with reply by Alan Macfarlane. Filmed on 4th July 2009 in King's College, Cambridge by Zilan Wang and edited by Alan Macfarlane.
The aim of these two volumes is to bring together a representative selection of the writings of E... more The aim of these two volumes is to bring together a representative selection of the writings of Edmund Leach (1910-1989), a brilliant and prolific anthropologist known not only in his field but to the educated public at large. Leach perceived anthropology as a vital and broadly based study of the human condition, encompassing methods and ideas from the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. His writings reflect the conviction that anthropology is of direct and practical importance to social policy and political debate. These two volumes present more than fifty items-many difficult to obtain and several never before published-displaying the considerable range of Leach's anthropological interests, the debates he provoked, and the issues he championed. Volume 1 Anthropology and Society contains a selection of Leach's writings on "society," taken largely though not exclusively from the early part of his career. Here his writings on social structure,...
The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This b... more The anthropology of ethics has become an important and fast-growing field in recent years. This book argues that it represents not just a new subfield within anthropology but a conceptual renewal of the discipline as a whole, enabling it to take account of a major dimension of human conduct which social theory has so far failed adequately to address. An ideal introduction for students and researchers in anthropology and related human sciences. r Shows how ethical concepts such as virtue, character, freedom and responsibility may be incorporated into anthropological analysis r Surveys the history of anthropology's engagement with morality r Examines the relevance for anthropology of two major philosophical approaches to moral life
News of this book has been circulating well in advance of its publication, and it has been widely... more News of this book has been circulating well in advance of its publication, and it has been widely and eagerly anticipated. The many anthropologists who have been enthused and excited, as well as those who have been provoked or mystified, by various earlier manifestations of 'the ontological turn' have looked forward to a comprehensive and authoritative statement of its principles and programme. This book certainly provides that, and gives a virtuoso performance in doing so. It positively bristles with enthusiasm, energy, and new ideas. It is engaging and inventive, spirited, combative, self-consciously contentious, and clearly driven by a restless, proselytising spirit, but it also sets out not just to dazzle with its conspicuous cleverness but also to persuade by serious argument. It succeeds in a good deal of what it sets out to do, and even those who are least convinced will be given a good deal to think about along the way. It ought to be widely read-really, anyone who thinks seriously about the nature of anthropology will want to read it-and it will certainly change the terms of debate. This it will do for several reasons, not least that its contents will come to so many as a surprise. The prospect of nature being multiple, of the ethnographic record presenting us with multiple worlds of 'radical alterity' in places such as Amazonia, Melanesia, and northern Mongolia, each of which requires its own radically new concepts aligned with its radically other ontology: this was what many followers of 'the turn' have found most exciting and compelling. They are swiftly disabused of these fantasies in this book. From the outset, Holbraad and Pedersen are clear that this new updated version of the ontological turn makes no metaphysical claims. It is now a 'strictly methodological proposal' (p. ix), which may come as a shock to those who took away from Thinking Through Things (Henare, Holbraad, & Wastell 2007) the idea that 'epistemology' was little short of a human rights abuse. It is necessary, say Holbraad and Pedersen, to move on from debates around what they call the 'first wave' of manifestations of the turn, 'including some of our own writings'. Understandably, and on the whole justifiably, they do not dwell for long on just what in those earlier writings gave rise to such widespread 'misunderstandings' (although it may be going just a wee bit too far in self-exculpation to say that multiple worlds and plural ontologies were 'flirted with' [p. 156] in texts in which they occupied centre-stage theoretically, and often appeared in the titles). The important thing is that the revision be clear, and the new position understood. So Holbraad and Pedersen helpfully recommend that the word 'ontological' be used only adjectivally; 'never as a noun!' they almost shout from the page, and therefore never in the plural. The concept of 'the ontological' is now to serve wholly as a signal that the question of what kind of theoretical vocabulary we use should remain resolutely open, and open specifically to influence from ethnographic data. It is a call to a special and demanding form of
Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; Buddha’s Light Mountain), an international Buddhist movement headquartered in... more Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; Buddha’s Light Mountain), an international Buddhist movement headquartered in Taiwan, regularly runs what it calls a short-term monastic cultivation retreat, a week-long residential program designed to provide lay members with an opportunity for intensive cultivation (修養; xiuyang or 修行; xiuxing). Contributions to the anthropology of ethics have recently drawn sharp distinctions between ordered, systematic ethics associated especially with religious traditions, and the compromise and accommodation that result from the exigencies of everyday life. This retreat, we argue, shows that the experience of ethical shortcomings can be a positive instrument and aspect of religious striving. While much debate in the anthropology of ethics assumes an a priori conceptual framework that opposes ordinary or everyday exigency to ordered transcendence, exigency and order in the Fo Guang Shan retreat are instead mutually constitutive and dynamically related. Here, failing and being...
Comment on Keane, Webb. 2016. Ethical life: Its natural and social histories. Princeton, NJ: Prin... more Comment on Keane, Webb. 2016. Ethical life: Its natural and social histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chapter 2 What if There is No Elephant? Towards a Conception of an Un-sited Field1 Joanna Cook, J... more Chapter 2 What if There is No Elephant? Towards a Conception of an Un-sited Field1 Joanna Cook, James Laidlaw and Jonathan Mair A group of Brahmins is engaged in quarrelsome dispute about the nature of reality. The Buddha tells them a story-the parable of the blind men and ...
A group of Brahmins is engaged in quarrelsome dispute about the nature of reality. The Buddha tel... more A group of Brahmins is engaged in quarrelsome dispute about the nature of reality. The Buddha tells them a story – the parable of the blind men and the elephant – as follows (Udana 6.4; see Masefield 1994, 128ff). A king orders all the men in his kingdom who have been blind from birth to be brought together and led before him, each having been partially introduced to an elephant, by each being given just one part of the elephant’s body to handle. The king then asks each of these people what kind of thing is an elephant. Those who had felt its head replied that an elephant is like a pot. Those who had held its ear said it resembled a winnowing basket. Those who had held only the trunk likened it to a plough, and so on. Then, just like the Brahmins, the blind men began to quarrel. The parable is used in the Buddhist text to warn against trying to reach conclusions about the nature of reality on the basis only of the partial view of the unenlightened. The original idea behind multi-sit...
Comment on Ortner, Sherry. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties.” H... more Comment on Ortner, Sherry. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73.
Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; Buddha’s Light Mountain), an international Buddhist movement headquartered in... more Fo Guang Shan (佛光山; Buddha’s Light Mountain), an international Buddhist movement headquartered in Taiwan, regularly runs what it calls a short-term monastic cultivation retreat, a week-long residential program designed to provide lay members with an opportunity for intensive cultivation (修養; xiuyang or 修行; xiuxing). Contributions to the anthropology of ethics have recently drawn sharp distinctions between ordered, systematic ethics associated especially with religious traditions, and the compromise and accommodation that result from the exigencies of everyday life. This retreat, we argue, shows that the experience of ethical shortcomings can be a positive instrument and aspect of religious striving. While much debate in the anthropology of ethics assumes an a priori conceptual framework that opposes ordinary or everyday exigency to ordered transcendence, exigency and order in the Fo Guang Shan retreat are instead mutually constitutive and dynamically related. Here, failing and being corrected are not imperfections in, but central and ritually scripted elements of its ethical pedagogy.
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總部設於臺灣的佛光山是具有世界影響力的佛教組織。其各地道場定期舉行之「短期出家修道會」活動通常持續一周，旨在為信眾提供密集修行機會。目前倫理人類學研究領域已明確區分了兩種道德實踐：其一為具有完美性和秩序性特質之系統，如宗教；其二為在日常生活應對道德困境時形成的具有折衷性和適應性的倫理。本研究透過分析佛光山「短期出家」活動，提出：（1）「不圓滿」體驗在個人宗教修行中具有獨特的積極促進作用；（2）兩種倫理是相輔相成，互動共生的。在佛光山「短期出家」中，活動參與者的行為錯誤與被矯並非通常認為的「不圓滿」所在，而是修行教育體系中至關重要的核心部分。
总部设于台湾的佛光山是具有世界影响力的佛教组织。其各地道场定期举行“短期出家修道会”，活动通常持续一周，旨在为信众提供密集修行机会。目前伦理人类学研究领域明确区分了两种道德实践：一是具有完美性和秩序性特质的系统，如宗教；二是在日常生活应对道德困境时形成的具有折衷性和适应性的伦理。本研究通过对佛光山“短期出家”活动的分析，提出：（1）“不圆满”体验在个人宗教修行中具有独特的积极促进作用；（2）两种伦理是相辅相成，动态共生的。在佛光山“短期出家”中，活动参与者的失败感与被矫正经验并非通常认为的“不圆满”所在，而恰是修行教育体系中至关重要的核心部分。