** ANTHROPOLOGICAL TRAPS **
Call for papers - EASA 2016:
http://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2016/panels.php5?PanelID=4071
The ethnographic record is replete with accounts of trapping as a
technology of hunting. From Notes and Queries to the Handbook of South
American Indians, descriptions of traps figure prominently as examples of
indigenous material culture and technology. Yet with the exception of
Alfred Gellıs well-known study of trapping as a technology of
enchantmentı, whose effects are analogous to those of art-works, traps and
trapping have otherwise failed to draw the attention of scholars as
objects of theory in their own right. This panel aims to correct this
historical omission by centering attention on trapsı as spaces of
ethnographic and theoretical productivity. We believe that traps offer new
ground with which to rethink the comparative project of anthropology.
There are a number of qualities to traps that are useful to think with in
this respect. On the one hand, traps work as interfaces between human and
nonhuman forms and agencies. They blur classical distinctions between prey
and predator, subject and object, nature and culture, epistemology and
ontology. Thus, they help trapı and fine-tune the very project of
re-description in the humanities. Secondly, traps work as ecological
infrastructures. They artefactualize the density of human and nonhuman
entanglements, holding Umwelts in tension and relational suspension. They
help outline and visualize how worlds come into existence. Third, traps
are space-time technologies in their own right. They are framing devices
where acceleration, expectation, anticipation or waiting take hold over
bodies and environments in various ways and intensities. They are material
instruments that pre-figure and re-inscribe the endo- and exo-energies of
the complex world around them.
A focus on traps may offer new and unsuspected insights into (say) the
deep history of archaeology and anthropology, where a focus on traps may
help rethink the environmental relations between domestication and
hunting. Traps have also played a prominent role in the history of
experimental science, for example, in quantum physics, where the effects
of entanglements are rendered visible through the use of ion traps. And,
as Gell famously noted, traps are a common ploy in the art world, where
they are indeed employed as technologies of enchantment and wonder.
For all of the above, we believe there is ample scope for engaging
productively with traps as anthropological devices in their own right.
There seems to be a sense in which the work of traps and trapping
introduces a depthı to anthropological analysis onto-epistemic,
ecological, spatio-temporal, instrumental such that analysis itself is
capturedı as a form of description. We are curious to hear from scholars
interested in reporting on ethnographic traps that may inspire new
projects in anthropological comparison and description.
Panel Convenors: Alberto Corsin Jimenez and Rane Willerslev
----
home: http://alberto-corsin-jimenez.org <http://alberto-corsin-jimenez.org>
blog: http://www.prototyping.es <http://www.prototyping.es/>
Ciudad Escuela - world's 1st open-source infrastructure of urban
apprenticeships! http://www.ciudad-escuela.org
Libraria - cooperative alternatives for open access scholarly publishing
http://libraria.cc/
@acorsin
BOOK: An anthropological trompe l'oeil for a common world: an essay on the
economy of knowledge
<http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title.php?rowtag=CorsinJimenezAnthropological
>
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/Anthropology-Matters.HTML *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers
*
* To unsubscribe: please log on to jiscmail.ac.uk, and *
* go to the 'Subscriber's corner' page. *
*
***************************************************************
|