Ontologies, ideologies, desire

The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 2012

This piece reflects on two 'ontological turns': the recent anthropological movement and that occasioned earlier in analytic philosophy by the work of W. V. O. Quine. I argue that the commitment entailed by 'ontology' is incompatible with the laudable aim of the 'ontological turn' in anthropology to take seriously radical difference and alterity.

2016

A longitudinal review of the anthropological literature will show that usage of the concept of "ontology" has increased dramatically: Drawing on Google Scholar one can see that between 1960 and 1990 there were only eight articles published which had anthropology and ontologyrelated words in the title, while between 1990 and 2016 the number was approximately 90. And akin to the ontological maneuver of a reversal of perspectives, our impression is that these 90 merely comprise the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In other words, anthropology has literally become awash with debates invoking ontology in a myriad ways-and, crucially, in ways that are often mutually incompatible. Opening Google Scholar's gates of knowledge-or, more correctly, the digital sediments of research texts-will therefore lead you to "ontology" being inferred in what may seem as sprawling and ultra-diverse anthropological discourses.

Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 2 (6): 5-11., 2013

In this response, I discuss the relationship between the concepts of culture and ontology, across STS and anthropology.

Once asked about the meaning of life, the historian of consciousness Julian Jaynes responded:

Krisis (Journal for Contemporary Philosophy), 2014

General Anthropology, 2022

Indiana 2012(29):9-24, 2012