New Animism

Sustainability is a wicked social problem, one difficult to solve because market capitalism inevitably produces ecological precarity. Consequently, marketing requires a paradigm shift. To address this problem, this research investigates a renewal of resource circulation theory and offers a glimpse of a sustainable neoanimist system. Neo-animist theory suggests new perspectives towards a more sustainable eco-economy of persons. Neoanimism foregrounds an alternative subjectivity to that inscribed in the modern social imaginary. Neo-animism is defined by the relationality of persons, the contingent extension of the principle of sociality to other living beings, and the recognition that all living beings are in communicative relations with significant others. Further, in a neo-animism framework resources circulate through transitive value co-creation processes, gifting, reciprocal exchange, and predation. Neo-animism provides an alternative to the dominant social exchange paradigm in marketing and addresses the challenges to sustainability identified in marketing and consumer research.

The research question that drives this research is what kind of marketing can we imagine in a future in which the capitalist market economy is dethroned from its dominant position? The paper's purpose is thus to suggest a path to a future eco-economy (Helkkula & Arnould, 2022). These goals lead first to a succinct critique of managerial marketing's axioms; second, to a concise synthesis of neo-animist principles derived from the recent ontological turn in anthropology. From there, the paper examines three relational modes through which animists organize resource circulation and value cocreation, and contemporary manifestations of practices and systems that show the enduring significance of gifting, reciprocal exchange, and predatory symbiosis to resource circulation and value cocreation. These examples can prefigure the kind of neo-animist eco-economic system we can imagine in a post-marketing world. Directions for future research build from the strategic steps towards a neo-animist post marketing systems and the challenges identified within prefigurative experiments in post-marketing resource circulation and value cocreation.

„Moral und musikalische Kreativität in der Harry Potter-Fangemeinde“ C. Hall
Catherine Hall stellt in ihrem Artikel „Reading and [w]rocking“: Moral und musikalische Kreativität in der Harry Potter-Fangemeinde fest: „Wizard Rock, in schriftlicher Form oft als ‚Wrock‘ stilisiert, beschäftigt sich auf kreative Weise mit der Inhaltswelt von Harry Potter und erweitert sie durch musikalisch und textlich vielfältige Darbietungen. Fanstudien zu Harry Potter haben oft die Anwendung fiktiven Heldentums auf reale Probleme diskutiert, und Wizard-Rock-Musiker werden häufig als Fandom-Aktivisten bezeichnet. Es gibt jedoch nur wenige Analysen der Musik, Texte und Darbietungen von Wizard Rock im Hinblick auf die moralischen Botschaften der Serie…… Ähnlich wie ihre Helden in den Büchern durchdringen diese Musiker ihre Musik und ihr Selbstbild mit den Moralvorstellungen, historischen Tropen und Archetypen der Serie. Sie machen diese Moral greifbar, indem sie den Erlös aus Compilation-Alben oder dem Verkauf von Musikabonnements an gemeinnützige Organisationen spenden und diese Botschaften in ihre Musik einweben. Ich behaupte, dass die Anwendung fiktiven Heldentums durch die Wizard-Rock-Community in Musik, Texten und Performance andere Harry-Potter-Fans dazu ermutigt, heroische Qualitäten in der realen Welt anzunehmen.“
Zur Perspektive: Die zeitgenössische und moderne Popularität von Star Wars und Harry Potter und die zahlreichen anderen fantasievollen Fandoms liefern – als soziologischen Beweis – massive Daten und Beweise für die Existenz unbewusster spiritueller Symbolik. Rhiannon Grant bemerkt in The Sacred in Fantastic Fandom, dass die britische Regierung 2001 eine regelmäßige Volkszählung durchführte, aber eine neue Frage zur Religion einschloss. Als Antwort darauf sagten fast 0,8 Prozent der Gesamtbevölkerung, sie seien ein „Jedi“ oder Jedi-Ritter!“ (S. 38). Diese Ergebnisse wiederholten sich in Australien und Neuseeland.
Die Forschung zur Musik als soziales und spirituelles Selbst ist bemerkenswert und hilfreich bei der Hervorhebung spiritueller und religiöser Überzeugungen. Tianyan Wang erklärt: „Seit Darwin (1871) glauben immer mehr Wissenschaftler, dass menschliche Musik eine biologische Anpassung sein muss.“ Jay Schulkin und Greta B. Raglan erklären: „Musik ist ein grundlegender Teil unserer Evolution – und funktional, weil sie ‚menschlichen Kontakt‘ und unser ‚soziales Selbst‘ erleichtert!“ und bilden ein Gegenstück zur materialsitischen Maxime, dass „alle Spiritualität unwirklich ist“ = W. R. Miller, C. E. Thoresen „Eine philosophische Grundlage für diese Perspektive ist der Materialismus, der Glaube, dass es nichts zu erforschen gibt, weil Spiritualität immateriell und jenseits der Sinne ist.“

Archaeological interpretations of prehistoric humanoid figurines, made and used by the hunter-gatherers of the Stone Ages, have traditionally relied on Western concepts of hylomorphism and iconology. Consequently, these figurines are depicted as finished and static objects of art, often separated from their archaeological contexts. Analysis of these figurines has been focused on identifying what they represent, rather than considering what they do or how people used them. This paper draws on new animism and Indigenous knowledge, combined with visual ethnographic analysis to create a visual ethnoarchaeology of northwestern Siberian humanoid figurines, here viewed as material spirits, within their animistic contexts. We argue that archaeologists' interpretative focus on representation should be abandoned in favour of attending to animation and the material and immaterial ecological relations these figurines shared with their prehistoric makers.

Im März 2023 stieß ich bei Spiegel Online in der Rubrik „Ausland“ auf einen kurzen Artikel zur thailändischen Gegenwartsgesellschaft, den ich hier als Ausgangspunkt nutzen möchte, um über die Darstellung thailändischer Religiosität in der deutschen Medienlandschaft zu reflektieren. Im Vordergrund meiner Betrachtung stehen kulturelle Praktiken, die im deutschen Diskurs häufig als ‚populäre Religion‘, ‚Volksglaube‘ oder ‚Aberglaube‘ bezeichnet werden. Ich werde in diesem Beitrag diskutieren, wie die scheinbar objektive Beschreibung dieser Praktiken in renommierten deutschen Nachrichtenmagazinen wie dem Spiegel dazu beiträgt, orientalisierende Bilder Thailands zu reproduzieren, die implizieren, dass die thailändische Gesellschaft weniger entwickelt, fortschrittlich und letztendlich nicht ebenbürtig mit der deutschen Gesellschaft ist. Gleichzeitig behindert uns die scheinbar rationale Darstellung dieser Praktiken aber daran, sie zu verstehen.

Animist cultures around the world are based on interactions among humans and other-than-human beings. Humans are active agents in this process and often establish alliances with other-than-human beings to accomplish a variety of goals. The means of establishing these alliances is an emerging area of interest in studies of animist ontologies. We demonstrate here that these allies are often object-persons specifically made or modified by humans to have desired spiritual and physical properties. Examples of common object-persons range from domestic residences to shamanic drums to sacred bundles used for ritual activities. We further establish that object-persons go through a life cycle typically starting with a process that activates and modifies latent agency. We demonstrate this process using case studies from the North American Southwest, especially during the Medio period (AD 1200 to 1450) occupation of the Casas Grandes region of northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United Sta...

Cornelia Funkes 2019 erschienener Fantasy-Roman „Das Labyrinth des Fauns“, der auf der Basis von Guillermo del Toros Film „Pan’s Labyrinth“ (2012) entstand, spielt in der Zeit der Franco-Diktatur und handelt von Ereignissen, die größtenteils in einem Wald stattfinden. Im Text, so könnte die These lauten, entsteht gleichsam eine Synthese zwischen Politik und Ökologie oder, anders ausgedrückt, Faschismus und Umweltzerstörung. Dabei wird die anthropozentrische Umweltauffassung auf kritische Weise zur Anschauung gebracht. Ziel des Beitrags ist es, das damit verbundene Reflexionspotential auf tiefenökologischer Ebene zur Entfaltung zu bringen. Da räumliche und dementsprechend auch charakterliche Gegensätze zwischen den Faschisten und Rebellen ein wesentliches Strukturelement des Textes bilden, werden raumsemantische Überlegungen Jurij M. Lotmans die Untersuchung methodisch ergänzen.

Kann uns die Romantik helfen, die Welt zu retten? Das behaupten drei aktuelle Kunstausstellungen VON THOMAS THIEMEYER Vor drei Jahren setzte der chinesische Künstler Zheng Bo fünf nackte Tänzer für eine Woche in einem schwedischen Wald aus, auf dass sie sich mit der Natur verbanden. Da schritten und rekelten sie sich, umschlangen im Handstand Baumstämme mit ihren blanken Beinen oder lehnten den bloßen Po gegen die raue Kiefernrinde. Zheng filmte das Ganze und stellte die Aufnahmen danach auf den Kopf respektive die Krone. So verdrehte er die gewohnten Verhältnisse: Der Mensch steht nicht länger im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit, sondern teilt es mit den Bäumen, mit denen zusammen er ein Kunstwerk co-kreiert und eine neue, intime Symbiose eingegangen ist.

Friends, I am dying: Friends I am done for. I've three scarves inside me, And this one makes four." -A young man in Salamanca, just killed by a bull The Beginning is the End: An Introduction The better you are at your job, the faster AI will take it. This is why we have to put pressure on the word "better." There can be no real discussion of the duende without allowing for non-human, or "more-than-human" agencies, to take Mayanthi Fernando's phrase. 1 In order to discuss "more-than-human" agencies, we must establish a sufficient definition of animism. E.B. Tylor coined the term, basically meaning "attributing life, soul, or spirit to inanimate objects." 2 He and Emile Durkheim both think animism is essentially a naive, childlike projection of the human consciousness onto non-human animals, plants, materia: Durkheim ascribes childlike qualities to animism, 3 and Tylor outright calls it a "childish philosophy." 4 Animism, to them, is the result of dreams and consensus reality being merged in an unenlightened way, and therefore, it is a primitive worldview. Obvious racism aside, both Durkheim and Tylor might be right that animism is the primitive, meaning original , cosmology of mankind. The difference is that I hold animism in high regard, and I don't believe it's childish or unsophisticated. The diabolical beauty of the term "animism" is that Europeans invented it to talk about the naive, childlike mind of brown people, but it was us 5 in the end that had the wrong theory of mind. The universe is not full of little homunculi, as Tylor suggests animists believe. Non-human agencies are not known through a projection of ourselves onto them, but through relations with 5 I'm (mostly) European and can't help but show it.

The making process of Khekhe objects/subjects rests upon the animistic ontological premises of the past. Khekhe is the Nenets notion of a certain thing in a particular situation, an animation of a thing or a place, such as idols, sledges, drums, poles, and a place in chum (Nenets type of tent) and places in the tundra and taiga landscapes. Yet, these animated things are being viewed and explained based on Western notions. First, by missionaries, as the work of the devil, and secondly, by ethnographers and anthropologists, as representations of gods within a failed epistemology and/or ontology. By studying the making and use of these Khekhe objects/subjects from a new animistic theoretical perspective and drawing on the Ingoldian critique of hylomorphism in favour of ontogenesis, we argue that these Khekhe objects/subjects are not static objects of art but a fundamental part of the old ways-a part of the animism that, in the form of an animistic syncretism, has persisted despite Christian missionaries, Soviet politics, and the explanations of both Eastern and Western ethnographers and anthropologists.

Recent developments in the study of nonhuman intelligence in nature-especially in the emerging field of plant "neurobiology"-are demonstrating that plants are much more than simply "green objects." 1 With the capacity to learn, remember and communicate, plants clearly also possess an interior world of subjective consciousness. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg, however, with plants representing just one type of expression of mind among innumerable other modes and manifestations. As the human world wakes up to the importance of plants, trees, and biodiversity in general for the immediate health of the global system, and new forest planting projects are initiated internationally to tackle the problems associated with climate change, we will soon realize that the process of re-greening and re-wilding is also, simultaneously, a process of reminding and re-animating the environment. This will necessarily involve the creation of spaces for nonhuman minds to flourish. If we fail to recognize this going forward, and continue to treat plants simply as green objects, then a truly ecological future will not be possible. Drawing on insights and examples from contemporary scientific ecology and biology, perspectives from indigenous worldviews and ontologies, and insights from paranormal research, this chapter suggests a vision of a "post green" future that sees plants and trees (among a whole range of other-than-human beings), not merely as green tools for ecological restoration and human flourishing, but as subjective minds and persons in their own right, who human beings must learn to understand and cooperate with.

Animist cultures around the world are based on interactions among humans and other-than-human beings. Humans are active agents in this process and often establish alliances with other-than-human beings to accomplish a variety of goals. The means of establishing these alliances is an emerging area of interest in studies of animist ontologies. We demonstrate here that these allies are often object-persons specifically made or modified by humans to have desired spiritual and physical properties. Examples of common object-persons range from domestic residences to shamanic drums to sacred bundles used for ritual activities. We further establish that object-persons go through a life cycle typically starting with a process that activates and modifies latent agency. We demonstrate this process using case studies from the North American Southwest, especially during the Medio period (AD 1200 to 1450) occupation of the Casas Grandes region of northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United Sta...

In this in-depth interview with Prof. Yari Or, artist-scholar Raffaele Rufo traces the autobiographical and philosophical background of his eco-somatic dance practice and discusses its pedagogical and socio-cultural implications for a world in deep ecological crises and a humanity afflicted by the inability to grieve for the loss of ecological connections.

Описано становлення теоретичного конструкту “християнський анімізм” у контексті оновленої академічної зацікавленості до архаїчних форм релігії. У цій роботі подано огляд адаптованого розуміння анімізму в контексті християнського богослов’я, що кардинально відрізняється від класичного розуміння анімізму в християнському вченні. Також було розглянуто критичний погляд теоретиків “християнського анімізму”, що передбачає фундаментальну роздвоєність між об’єктивним характером і суб’єктивною культурою. Простежено розвиток та практична реалізація ідеї “християнського анімізму” у межах концепцій, що пов’язані з дослідженням взаємодії релігії та природи і духовності корінних народів Північної Америки.

Our ways of representing the cosmological world are core issues in the reconfigured animism field in contemporary anthropology, as well as a recurring theme in the social sciences’ current interest in ontologies. This paper interrogates methodological questions of decisions regarding who to listen to as cosmological interlocuters in fieldwork, and how to interpret diverse perspectives and varied claims of expertise on the spirit-worlds. The work is an attempt to be transparent about the methodological untidiness of fieldwork on a topic upon which there seems to be a very nebulous body of ideas and practice. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Kulen plateau in northwest Cambodia, I describe an expressed paucity of specialized knowledge about the nature of the cosmological inhabitants of the place. However, when it came to engaging with the spirit-worlds, mountain residents joined together in complex ritual practice. Cosmological knowledge was not held by one but many, and supernatural solutions were sought through a network of expertise and in community. I contrast the types of knowledge held by pilgrims to the mountain with that of its long-term residents, and discuss the challenges presented in observing and representing a varied cosmological ethnoscape in a sacred place.

I proposes that the modernist worldview that we have inherited is deeply flawed, and that animism offers a more sustainable way of being for the present time, one which is deeply relational and embodied, one which engenders a deep respect for the other-than-human world. This embodied way of knowing is nurtured by relational imagination. The exploration of these ideas is carried out through the lens of contemporary Western animist spirituality.

Animist cultures around the world are based on interactions among humans and other-than-human beings. Humans are active agents in this process and often establish alliances with other-than-human beings to accomplish a variety of goals. The means of establishing these alliances is an emerging area of interest in studies of animist ontologies. We demonstrate here that these allies are often object-persons specifically made or modified by humans to have desired spiritual and physical properties. Examples of common object-persons range from domestic residences to shamanic drums to sacred bundles used for ritual activities. We further establish that object-persons go through a life cycle typically starting with a process that activates and modifies latent agency. We demonstrate this process using case studies from the North American Southwest, especially during the Medio period (AD 1200 to 1450) occupation of the Casas Grandes region of northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United Sta...

The research aims to develop an experiential and creative set of shared skills, tools, and experiences that will integrate somatic intelligence to access place, putting new tools into processes to think and experience the space as a network of relations.

Animist cultures around the world are based on interactions among humans and other-than-human beings. Humans are active agents in this process and often establish alliances with other-than-human beings to accomplish a variety of goals. The means of establishing these alliances is an emerging area of interest in studies of animist ontologies. We demonstrate here that these allies are often object-persons specifically made or modified by humans to have desired spiritual and physical properties. Examples of common object-persons range from domestic residences to shamanic drums to sacred bundles used for ritual activities. We further establish that object-persons go through a life cycle typically starting with a process that activates and modifies latent agency. We demonstrate this process using case studies from the North American Southwest, especially during the Medio period (AD 1200 to 1450) occupation of the Casas Grandes region of northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Our primary examples are the creation of three Mesoamerican-style ballcourts and a water reservoir at Paquimé, which is the ceremonial and political center of the Medio period world. These examples reflect the underlying animistic ontology of this culture and provide a case study of the relationship between material religion and ritual practice that frames animistic religious practices.

In this chapter I synthesise ethnographic material with a recent paradigm shift in the anthropology of animism to outline a novel way of how mediumship in Thailand’s lower Northeast may be approached anthropologically. The chapter mirrors my ongoing attempt to decolonise our thought when we write about phenomena like possession and mediumship, as the most common analytical tropes we encounter in anthropological texts are still infused by a deeply Eurocentric philosophical undercurrent. The novel language I propose in this chapter is an attempt to work on an answer to the essential question posed by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro: ‘What do anthropologists owe, conceptually, to the people they study?’

I am an Eco-Pagan insider who became aware of the existence of a "somatic, physical knowing" through my personal practice (Harris, 1996: 151). Questions about this powerful but peculiar phenomena led me to undertake fieldwork amongst UK Eco-Pagans living at protest camps and in more conventional urban settings (Harris, 2008 and 2011). I found that many Eco-Pagans explain their intimate relationships with the organic environment in terms of the genius loci – the spirits of place - and I developed an embodied situated epistemology to understand this process.

As Harvey explains, contemporary animists are concerned with "particular ways of being related to the world" that challenge "discourses that divide spirit and flesh, soul and body, subject and object ... people and environment, and so on" (Harvey, 2005: 83). I offer a model of embodied situated cognition that illustrates how this way of being might operate. It both deepens our understanding of this radically non-dual way of being and affirms that it is more fundamental to human experience than conventional Western dualist consciousness. This article thus makes a significant contribution towards the ongoing discussion of relational epistemologies and ontologies (inter alia Bird-David, 1999) and the "new animism" (Harvey, 2005: 83).

I propose that embodied situated cognition depends on an affective, sensual mode of being-in-the-world that reveals a fundamental integration between what we conventionally understand as 'self' and 'world'. An awareness of how we can think with and beyond the embodied situated self enables Eco-Pagans to enter into a true communion with places, flora, fauna and spirits. As well as being profoundly healing, these intimate local relationships, which one participant described as "listening to the threshold brook" (Barry Patterson, 2007), offer a pattern for a sacred relationship to the world.

Fourth session in the publication 'Diversity in Archaeology. Proceedings of the Cambridge Annual Student Archaeology Conference 2020/2021'

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Ethnographic analogies have always been a part of the process of interpreting the archaeological record. Throughout shifting paradigms, the use of ethnographic analogies has gone from naïve to complex reasoning, demanding that time aspects, ecological settings, and deep structures are to be considered in the search for large-scale processes or ideologies. Recently, posthumanist theoretical perspectives, including the ontological turn, new materialism and human-animal relations, have shifted focus from top-down, large-scale processes or ideological approaches to a bottom-up approach celebrating local contexts, which values relational over human agency and diversity. Posthuman approaches are thus regarded as more inclusive. However, ethnography is still a tool designed to meet Western epistemological needs and faces the challenging prospect of balancing Indigenous ways of knowing with the need to be scientifically rigorous. This in turn highlights pervasive colonialism and the lack of multivocality, where Indigenous voices are often discredited for being subjective (Kovach, 2010), even within posthuman archaeologies. Ultimately, posthuman approaches can risk the same universalities that they discredit. This session welcomes (but is not limited to) papers that demonstrate new and diverse applications of ethnographic analogy to prehistoric and historic contexts, as well as heritage studies that celebrate local ways of understanding the past.

A short overview of the Estonian werewolf tradition of the 16th and 17th centuries and a glimpse of the 19th and 20th century werewolf beliefs offering a comparison of the perceptions of the werewolf of the earlier and later periods. The differences of the perceptions of these two eras are examined against the background of theoretical approaches of Tim Ingold and Philippe Descola, which help to interpret changes in worldview based on the shift from pre-modern society to modernity

This article undertakes a critical analysis of the adoption of process metaphysics in the field of archaeology and anthropology for the explanation of animism. The field of 'new animism' has adopted process metaphysics in order to counter the nineteenth-century definition of animism as epistemological projection towards animism as ontological condition. This shift from epistemology towards ontology has the danger of equating animism with process metaphysics as such. By examining the category of propositional judgement within Whitehead's metaphysics, I argue that the condition of animism emerges through a judgement of truth, which is aesthetic. It is through Whitehead's integration of propositional judgement within his metaphysical system that one can understand that an ontological approach towards animism is not necessarily opposed to a reflective type of experience.

(EN)
The research focuses on the somatic exploration of spatial qualities using performance as a tool for thinking about architecture. Performance is a powerful critical tool and helps to highlight the ways in which experimental practice can help reveal new strategies to address the challenges facing society. It seeks to answer whether performance can be used to explore spatial qualities, whether knowledge gained from this perspective can provide productive and tangible benefits in the design of shared environments, and what the benefits are of understanding architecture as a physical manifestation of relationships. The intuitive nature, as well as the personal psychosomatic involvement, predetermines the gradual and unpredictable development of the project.

(SK)
Výskum je zameraný na somatické skúmanie priestorových vlastností, kde sa používa performancia ako nástroj určený pre uvažovanie nad architektúrou. Performancia je silným kritickým nástrojom a pomáha poukázať na možnosti, ako môže experimentálna prax pomôcť odhaliť nové stratégie na riešenie výziev, ktorým spoločnosť čelí. Je to snaha nájsť odpovede na to, či môže byť využitá performancia na preskúmanie priestorových kvalít, či znalosti získané z tohto hľadiska môžu poskytnúť produktívne a hmatateľné výhody pri navrhovaní zdieľaného prostredia a aké výhody prináša chápanie architektúry ako fyzického prejavu vzťahov. Intuitívny charakter, ako aj osobná psychosomatická zainteresovanosť predurčujú postupný a nevypočítateľný vývoj projektu.

In this essay, I explore the mass possession of schoolgirls in the district of Dogondoutchi, Niger. Besides pointing to the struggles girls face
in a country where women’s education remains controversial, possession brings attention to a past Muslim religious authorities have tried to silence. When trees were cut to make space for schools, their spiritual occupants were uprooted. Far from vanishing, however, the displaced spirits now haunt the very venues whose emergence contributed to their displacement. I consider how the irruption of spirits in schools highlights the fraught relation between Islam and animism, suggesting how Islam and animism exist in and through each other. Weber wrote how modern times were about the disenchantment of the world, yet he knew gods and spirits do not completely disappear. It is this predicament and the conundrums it gives rise to that the
attacks on schoolgirls exemplify.

Why are ostensibly paradoxical statements so common when
villagers in Thailand’s lower Northeast are asked to recount their
personal encounters with the nonhumans known as phi in local
language games? Inspired by the anthropology of ontology and
drawing on Wittgenstein’s linguistic phenomenology, I set out to
explore the epistemic appropriateness of the paradox in
ethnographic accounts of villagers’ narratives about these
encounters. In an attempt to epistemologically decolonize the
debate on Thailand’s phi, I use interlocutors’ ostensibly paradoxical
narratives about their encounters to reflect upon the multiple
worlds that intersect in villagers’ everyday lives. While an analytic
reconstruction of the various language games this multiplicity
produces and their partly irreconcilable ontological registers may
help to dissolve the paradox of villagers’ accounts analytically, I ask
whether the scholarly inclination to identify and resolve paradoxes
through the acknowledgment of epistemological multiplicity
reproduces the hegemony of naturalism. An outline of animist
collectivity and its identification as the social ontology of everyday
village life finally suggests that the ostensible paradoxes that
encounters with phi produce are not only what makes them
socially meaningful, but also enunciations of the concept phi itself.

The ethnographic decipherment of the Bushman (San) rock art of southern Africa instigated a revolution in our understanding of hunter-gatherer rock arts worldwide, even in regions widely separated from the original context of the model. Crucial to this decipherment were the narratives of the Bushman Qing, an inhabitant of the nineteenth-century Maloti-Drakensberg. This article returns to Qing's testimony to investigate why it is that a putative ‘hunter-gatherer’ of the Maloti-Drakensberg should have chosen to express the relationship between ritual specialists (‘shamans’) and non-human entities (game animals and the rain) through taming idioms. It discusses the wider context of ‘taming’ and ‘wildness’ in Southern Bushman thought, responding to calls to consider these communities and their visual arts in light of the perspectives of the ‘new animisms’. It explores how these idioms help us to understand particular visual tropes in the rock art of the Maloti-Drakensberg and highlig...

Termite mounds are frequently mentioned in anthropological discussions of territorial cults in the region Paul Mus called monsoon Asia. While Mus emphasised stones and their veneration to identify a shared ritual language of chthonic cults that enabled him to formulate this alternative regionalisation, he did not address termite mounds and their worship explicitly. This original omission may be the reason why termite mounds, although frequently mentioned by anthropologists working in the region, are largely neglected as study objects sui generis. Most anthropologists tend to follow Mus and focus on stones, which makes them miss the essential fact that many stone-like artefacts worshipped in territorial cults throughout Southeast Asia bear intimate linkages to termite mounds. In this chapter I follow Mus and use termite mounds to look at ancient India from the East to better understand everyday ritual practices in contemporary Thailand. I am, however, not suggesting that we find the origin or true meaning of these local practices in the Indian subcontinent, Sanskrit texts or Hindu mythology. I am rather emphasising Mus’ central point that the meaningfulness of termite mound veneration rests on a shared language game of chthonic cults in which the worshipped ‘stones’ are not ‘the “seat” of the god, but the god himself, consubstantially. Not the stone of the genie, but the stone-genie’. I am drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a rural sub-district (tambon) of Thailand’s Buriram Province in which termite mounds and their stone-like remnants are objects of worship in localised territorial cults to answer why these earthly structures and their stone-like remnants have such a great ritual significance in the region.

Статья посвящена эволюции научных представлений о духах, божествах и иных сакральных существах, начиная с эпохи Просвещения до наших дней. Затрагивая некоторые влиятельные школы и яркие научные идеи в антропологии, этнологии, социологии и в интегративных научных проектах, автор намечает магистральные направления гуманитарной дискуссии об онтологии духов и связанных с ними религиозных и магических практик. Задачей статьи является историческая и эпистемологическая концептуализация поворота от позитивистской идеи "расколдовать мир" (М. Вебер) до постструктуралистско-перспективистского проекта "открыть заколдованность мира заново" (Э. Кон). Данный поворот, по мнению автора, стал возможным благодаря постколониальной рефлексии, движению за деколонизацию знания, деконструкции классических философских проблем и глубокой постмодернистской критике программы Просвещения, в значительной мере содержавшей досекулярные интенции. В XXI веке многие антропологи стали рассматривать местные онтологии как этнометафизики или инокультурные науки, а духов и божеств как самости или нечеловеческих актантов. Развитие подобных горизонтальных методологий, ставшее возможным благодаря все большему проникновению в социальные науки философии и семиотики, привело к появлению так называемого нового (или экспериментального) анимизма (Д. Харауэй). Его можно охарактеризовать как экспериментальную платформу, связанную с исследованиями в области «антропологии по ту сторону человека». Такого рода исследования, кроме своего этнографического наполнения и философского обоснования, как правило, имеют и ярко выраженный мировоззренческий заряд. Данный заряд заключается в экологическом и эвристическом значении преодоления антропоцентризма в целом либо ряда его негативных последствий.

With earlier origins and a rebirth in the late 1990s, the New Animisms and the precipitate ‘ontological turn’ have now been in full swing since the mid-2000s. They make a valuable contribution to the interpretation of the rock arts of numerous societies, particularly in their finding that in animist societies, there is little distinction between nature and culture, religious belief and practicality, the sacred and the profane. In the process, a problem of perspective arises: the perspectives of such societies, and the analogical sources that illuminate them, diverge in more foundational terms from Western perspectives than is often accounted for. This is why archaeologists of religion need to be anthropologists of the wider world, to recognise where animistic and shamanistic ontologies are represented, and perhaps where there is reason to look closely at how religious systems are used to imply Cartesian separations of nature and culture, religious and mundane, human/person and animal/non-person, and where these dichotomies may obscure other forms of being-in-the-world. Inspired by Bird-David, Descola, Hallowell, Ingold, Vieiros de Castro, and Willerslev, and acting through the lens of navigation in a populated, enculturated, and multinatural world, this contribution locates southern African shamanic expressions of rock art within broader contexts of shamanisms that are animist.

The present work serves to bring to the fore bear-human relations as they appear in Scandinavian folklore. This has been done through mythic discourse analysis of Norwegian and Swedish folkloric material, which was organized by constructing a motif-index and then analysing the material through a theoretical framework based on recent developments in anthropology. The thesis develops a working theory of what I call bear culture. This concept is an amalgamation of new animist theories, perspectivism and the implications derived from them. If bears are approached as persons with agency, and are endowed through perspectivism with a body that is inherently malleable and fundamentally an expression cultural instruments, then bears and their interaction with humans can be understood as reflecting bear culture. The study shows that the theme of transformation, which permeates the material at hand, can be tied in various ways to cultural interactions and dynamics.

In the last decades, the worldview(s) of so-called Indigenous religions have regained academic interest. Scholars of religion, anthropologists, and Indigenous writers engage in a new research field called new animism characterized by a diversity of insider and outsider positions. The field contains immense potential for inspiring general debates in the study of religion because it touches on fundamental questions about hermeneutics, epistemology, epistemic goals, disciplinary identities, and the influence of Western ontology on scientific and academic research. This article aims to draw the attention of scholars of religion to the new animism by contextualizing the field within disciplinary and cultural history, presenting its core theories, analyzing its methodological and epistemological positions, and identifying the central players ands its politically highly charged social contexts with asymmetrical power relations. Finally, it discusses how the new animism challenges general debates within the study of religion and may provocatively stimulate them. Keywords indigenous religions-new materialism-ontological turn-insider/outsider debate-methodology-epistemology Since the early days of contact, Europeans have been puzzled and fascinated by the supposedly animist cosmologies of the Indigenous peoples they subjected to colonization: Why do these people believe that stones are alive when-clearly to the rational Western eye-they are not? Basing their opinions on the

Idealtypisch gesprochen und mit Verweis auf Ferdinand Tönnies‘ grundlegende Typenbildung, beschäftige ich mich in diesem Beitrag mit lebensweltlichen Vorstellungen von Gemeinschaft und ihrer alltäglichen Reproduktion im ländlichen Nordosten Thailands.  Die Imagination und Erfahrung der Zugehörigkeit zu diesen lebensweltlichen Gemeinschaften versuche ich, mit den Konzepten Kollektivvorstellungen und Kollektivbewußtsein zu fassen, die ich zwar in Anlehnung an Lucien Lévy-Bruhl und Emile Durkheim gebrauche, jedoch leicht abgewandelt habe.  Dabei spiele ich mit der sprachlichen Ambiguität beider Konzepte im Deutschen, wo Kollektivvorstellungen sowohl geteilte Vorstellungen innerhalb eines Kollektivs als auch unterschiedliche Imaginationen von Kollektivität beschreiben können. Dieses Spiel mit der sprachlichen Ambiguität zweier Konzepte, die zum festen Repertoire der Sozialwissenschaften gehören, soll einerseits auf die mögliche Unübersetzbarkeit von Kollektivkonzepten zwischen Sprachspielen hinweisen und andererseits die praktische Bedeutsamkeit von Ambiguität in animistischen Sprachspielen betonen.

This paper is a preliminary report on the results of an informal survey tentatively exploring the connections between the practice of Permaculture and extraordinary experiences. It will introduce Permaculture, give an overview of the questions posed in the survey, examine some of the responses received and speculate on possible frameworks for understanding the connection. It is intended to be an exploratory study and to encourage further research into the connections between extraordinary experience and practical ecology.

Ewa Domanska recovers a relatively unknown text by White, ”Posthumanism and the liberation of humankind” (2000), to inquire as to what extent the task of liberating individuals from «the burden of history» implies taking on the task of liberating individuals from the burden of the very notion of humanity. (José Neves, "Editorial - The History of Hayden White").
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The explorations presented in the article provide a brief outline of the larger affirmative humanities project. Following Rosi Braidotti’s ideas of affirmative
ethics and politics, I propose an understanding of affirmative humanities as a way of moving away from a postmodernist interest in apocalypse, catastrophes,
extinction, trauma, suffering, voids, silence and exclusion. I consider affirmative humanities to be a project that is future oriented, envisioning the future in more positive ways (which is not to say naive and unrealistic ways), while aiming to empower the subject (human and non-human, individual as well as collective) and looking for alternative forms of community.
See also: Thamara Rodrigues, Humanidades afirmativas: a negação da política do medo e a construção do futuro a despeito dos tempos, HH Magazine, 2018 [https://hhmagazine.com.br/humanidades-afirmativas-a-negacao-da-politica-do-medo-e-a-construcao-do-futuro-a-despeito-dos-tempos/]

In this daring debut, Zayin Cabot challenges the wise homebodies of academia. A profoundly interdisciplinary approach to comparative scholarship, Ecologies of Participation offers a methodology whereby we can face our shared planetary predicament. It is grounded in process philosophy and asserts the importance of a new ontology of agency. It traces the importance of Lévy-Bruhl and Lévi-Strauss's early work while offering new insight into the ontological turn in anthropology. This book sets out to destabilize modern reductionist trends toward scientific materialism, without falling into postmodern cultural constructivism. It does not assume the giveness of nature or culture. By advancing a multi-ontology approach, this work offers robust interventions into decolonial and critical studies. Cabot takes contemporary scholarship in new and exciting directions—offering an unstable ground from which to examine our shared worlds, both human and other. Throughout the last chapters of the book, these threads are illuminated through a detailed ethics of comparison and participation.

Why would a lion have hooves or tusks? In the context of southern African rock art research, the ontological turn in social science has breathed new life into the discipline, allowing for fresh debate. This involves revisiting ethnographies of 19th century |Xam San in the Northern Cape of South Africa and 20th century the 0 1 C 0 Ju 'hoansi of Botswana with a view towards the animacy of nonhuman persons and their role in maintaining the functioning of society, on both a mundane and a spiritual plain (and simultaneously). Animist ontologies are often structured around the notion of causality. The behaviours of members of society towards fellow human-persons, nonhuman animal-persons, god-persons, spirit-persons or the elements have direct causal consequences for all those involved. As with other predator/prey relationships, lions are seen largely as malevolent; seeking to deceive their human prey. Lions, in the San idiom, are accorded the same animate qualities as human persons: they have the ability to speak, to dream and, crucially, a powerful ability to transform into other persons-human and nonhuman. Strict rules govern human interactions with lions. If the correct behaviours are not carried out, undesirable consequences abound. However, in a shared relational framework of understanding both parties, lion and human, have the ability to manipulate circumstances to their benefit. Paintings of lions therefore exhibit features of non-leonine animals in order to stress differential influences in the relationships between lions, humans and other key nonhuman players – features which break with the simplistic predator/prey dichotomy.

Do it Yourself (DiY) is a participatory culture which exemplifies a particular ethos in its approach to technology and materials. Rather than engage with 'complete' technologies, such as a technology supplied as ready-to-go item, the DiY practitioners examined in this thesis engage with the raw materials of garbage and recycling, 'incomplete', broken and discarded technologies. In this type of DiY practice the emphasis is towards creating individualised and custom-built forms of technology: often made from components and materials which have been re-functioned from their original intention to produce new and unexpected functionalities; practices which disrupt the dominant discourses of technology.

Zu behaupten, ich hätte diese Arbeit "selbstständig verfasst", kommt mir angesichts der Beteiligung vieler Personen eigenartig vor. Jedenfalls lassen sich die Unterstützung, die Begleitung und auch die Zwänge, die zu der vorliegenden Arbeit geführt haben, mit einer Danksagung nicht ausgleichen. Dennoch möchte mich an dieser Stelle zumindest rituell (oder förmlich) bei jenen bedanken, die mir dieses Projekt nicht nur ermöglicht, sondern substantiell zu dessen Verlauf und Fertigstellung beigetragen haben. Ich bedanke mich bei Manfred Kremser, der mir noch kurz vor seinem Tod versicherte, dass ich diese Dissertation schreiben werde. Mit dem Marietta Blau-Stipendium des Bundesministeriums für Wissenschaft und Forschung unter Karlheinz Töchterle konnte der einjährige Feldaufenthalt in Bristol (zumindest zu einem Großteil) finanziert werden. Für weitere Finanzierung und vor allem für den Glauben an ihre Sinnhaftigkeit danke ich meiner Mutter Rosemarie Graf und ihren Eltern Rosa und Lorenz Steiner. Meinen FreundInnen und GesprächspartnerInnen im Feld danke ich, dass sie mich und Eva Graf an ihrem Leben teilhaben ließen, und dass sie an unserem Leben teilgenommen haben. Dominic Rooney sei hier im speziellen gedankt, weil er uns ein Heim geboten hat, indem auch unser Sohn Jan geboren werden konnte. Für Gespräche und Beratungen bin ich Kathryn Rountree, Tim Ingold und Graham Harvey zu Dank verpflichtet. Elke Mader danke ich, dass sie mich (einen "Kremser-Schüler") bereitwillig als Dissertanten akzeptiert hat und mein Projekt von Beginn an gefördert hat. Des Weiteren danke ich den TeilnehmerInnen der Konferenzen New Socialities and Subjectivities in Health Care in the 21st Century (MAAH -University Feedback, Motivation, Korrekturen und Kommentare. Für die Transkriptionen der Interviews bedanke ich mich bei Dune Johnson und Luke Chamberlain. Für die großartige Unterstützung in der allerletzten Phase dieses Prozesses gilt den fünf Männern Uli Göttke-Krogmann, Evangelos Karagiannis, Mark Kirstätter, Wolfgang Stuchlik und Martin Thalhammer mein Dank, für unglaubliche Leistungen beim Korrigieren, Bibliografieren, Redigieren und Motivieren. Das Schreiben der vorliegenden Arbeit ist mit einem bestimmten Ort auf ganze besondere Weise verbunden. Diese "Umwelt" ist die Wohngemeinschaft (oder der Coworking Space) Taborstraße: mit dem Brendl ums eine Eck, dem Au-BürgerInnen-Garten ums andere; den samstäglichen Blühpflanzen und den frischen Lebensmitteln vom Karmelitermarkt; den Mühlviertler "Fleischaktionen" und der engelshaften Mariana Seritean, die danach wieder für Ordnung sorgt; der immer bis zum Rand gefüllten Tiefkühltruhe; den vorzüglichen Speisen, mit einschlägiger "Prominenz" oder ohne; den Gesprächen mit Vangelis, Muza und Pezi; den materialisierten Erinnerungen an die zahlreichen Arbeiten und Qualifizierungsarbeiten; der formidablen Bibliothek und vor allem anderen mit der gemeinschaftlichen "Arbeits-Freizeit" mit Gerti. Ich danke Dir! Du hast meine Arbeit ins Freie geführt. Diese Dissertation wurde vor allem durch eine Person möglich. Eva hat mich durch diesen sechsjährigen Prozess mit all seinen Höhen und Tiefen begleitet, mich gefördert und unterstützt. Ich danke Dir für die Geduld und die Ausdauer, die Du nicht nur meiner Abwesenheit, sondern auch Jan und Hannah entgegengebracht hast.