American Ethnologist· 2014Q1
Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique
- 513citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2014year
Short summary
Ontological anthropology, by focusing on future possibilities and Indigenous alterity, narrows legitimate research concerns and widens acceptable disregard, particularly regarding modernity's impact.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Ontological anthropology often narrows legitimate research concerns and widens acceptable disregard.
- The paradigm's focus on the future redefines the political and anthropology's relation to critique.
- The critique is informed by fieldwork on Indigenous alterity and hydrocarbon materiality.
- The authors present three conceptual theses to encapsulate their criticism.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
ABSTRACT What does ontological anthropology promise, what does it presume, and how does it contribute to the formatting of life in our present? Drawing from our respective fieldwork on how Indigenous alterity is coenvisioned and how the lively materiality of hydrocarbons is recognized, we develop an ethnographic and theoretical critique of ontological anthropology. This essay, then, provides an empirical counterweight to what the ontological turn celebrates of Native worlds and what it rejects of modernity. In it, we examine the methodological and conceptual investments of ontological anthropology. The figure of the ontological as commonly invoked, we argue, often narrows the areas of legitimate concern and widens the scope of acceptable disregard within social research. We chart how this paradigm's analytical focus on the future redefines the coordinates of the political as well as anthropology's relation to critique. Finally, we formulate three conceptual theses that encapsulate our criticism and open this discussion to further debate.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. American Ethnologist, 2014 · DOI ↗
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Field: Anthropology
AnthropologySocial Sciences