1932
0
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Annual Review of Anthropology
  4. Volume 44, 2015
  5. Article

Annual Review of Anthropology

Volume 44, 2015

Anthropology of Ontologies

Abstract

The turn to ontology, often associated with the recent works of Philippe Descola, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, and Bruno Latour, but evident in many other places as well, is, in Elizabeth Povinelli's formulation, “symptomatic” and “diagnostic” of something. It is, I here argue, a response to the sense that sociocultural anthropology, founded in the footsteps of a broad humanist “linguistic” turn, a field that takes social construction as the special kind of human reality that frames its inquiries, is not fully capable of grappling with the kinds of problems that are confronting us in the so-called Anthropocene—an epoch in which human and nonhuman kinds and futures have become so increasingly entangled that ethical and political problems can no longer be treated as exclusively human problems. Attending to these issues requires new conceptual tools, something that a nonreductionistic, ethnographically inspired, ontological anthropology may be in a privileged position to provide.

Keyword(s): Anthropocene, anthropological theory, multinaturalism, ontology
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-014127
2015-10-21
2025-04-18
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/anthro/44/1/annurev-anthro-102214-014127.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-014127&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Agard-Jones V. 2013. Bodies in the system. Small Axe 17:182–92 [Google Scholar]
  2. Alberti B, Bray TL. 2009. Introduction. Camb. Archaeol. J. 19:337–43 [Google Scholar]
  3. Appadurai A. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  4. Austin JL. 1962. How To Do Things with Words Oxford, UK: Clarendon [Google Scholar]
  5. Balée W. 1989. The culture of Amazonian forests. Adv. Econ. Bot. 7:1–21 [Google Scholar]
  6. Bateson G. 2000 (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  7. Bateson G. 2002 (1979). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity Creskill, NJ: Hampton [Google Scholar]
  8. Bessire L. 2014. Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  9. Bessire L, Bond D. 2014. Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique. Am. Ethnol. 41:440–56 [Google Scholar]
  10. Biehl J, Locke P. 2010. Deleuze and the anthropology of becoming. Curr. Anthropol. 51:317–51 [Google Scholar]
  11. Bird-David N. 1999. “Animism” revisited: personhood, environment, and relational epistemology. Curr. Anthropol. 40:S67–91 [Google Scholar]
  12. Blaser M. 2009. The threat of the Yrmo: the political ontology of a sustainable hunting program. Am. Anthropol. 111:10–20 [Google Scholar]
  13. Boas F. 1889. On alternating sounds. Am. Anthropol. 2:47–54 [Google Scholar]
  14. Bryant L. 2011. The Democracy of Objects Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanities [Google Scholar]
  15. Bryant L, Srnicek N, Harman G. 2011. The Speculative Turn: Continental Materialism and Realism Melbourne, Aust: re.press [Google Scholar]
  16. Callon M. 1999. Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of. St. Brieuc Bay The Science Studies Reader M Biagioli 67–83 New York: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  17. Callon M, Law J, Rip A. 1986. Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan [Google Scholar]
  18. Castaing-Taylor L, Paravel V. 2012. Leviathan New York: Cinema Guild [Google Scholar]
  19. Chakrabarty D. 2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  20. Chakrabarty D. 2009. The climate of history: four theses. Crit. Inq. 35:197–222 [Google Scholar]
  21. Chakrabarty D. 2012. Postcolonial studies and the challenge of climate change. New Lit. Hist. 43:1–18 [Google Scholar]
  22. Chakrabarty D. 2014. Climate and capital: on conjoined histories. Crit. Inq. 41:1–23 [Google Scholar]
  23. Choy TK. 2011. Ecologies of Comparison: An Ethnography of Endangerment in Hong Kong Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  24. Clifford J, Marcus GE. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  25. Connolly WE. 2013. The Fragility of Things: Self-Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  26. Danowski D, Viveiros de Castro E. 2014. Há mundo por vir? Ensaio sobre os medos e os fins Florianópolis/São Paulo: Cult. Barbár. Inst. Socioambient. [Google Scholar]
  27. De la Cadena M. 2010. Indigenous cosmopolitics in the Andes: conceptual reflections beyond “politics.”. Cult. Anthropol. 25:334–70 [Google Scholar]
  28. Deacon TW. 1997. The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain New York: WW Norton & Co. [Google Scholar]
  29. Deleuze G, Guattari F. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press [Google Scholar]
  30. Descola P. 1994. In the Society of Nature: A Native Ecology in Amazonia Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  31. Descola P. 1996. Constructing natures: ecology and social practice. See Descola & Pálsson 1996 84–102
  32. Descola P. 2010. Cognition, perception and worlding. Interdiscip. Sci. Rev. 35:334–40 [Google Scholar]
  33. Descola P. 2013. Beyond Nature and Culture Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  34. Descola P. 2014. Modes of being and forms of predication. HAU 4:271–80 [Google Scholar]
  35. Descola P, Pálsson G. 1996. Nature and Society: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  36. Diamond C. 2008. The difficulty of reality and the difficulty of philosophy. Philosophy and Animal Life S Cavell 43–89 New York: Columbia Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  37. Durkheim E. 1938 (1895). The Rules of Sociological Method Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  38. Fischer MM. 2014. The lightness of existence and the origami of “French” anthropology: Latour, Descola, Viveiros de Castro, Meillassoux, and their so-called ontological turn. HAU 4:331–55 [Google Scholar]
  39. Fortun K. 2014. From Latour to late industrialism. HAU 4:309–29 [Google Scholar]
  40. Foucault M. 1970. The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences New York: Vintage [Google Scholar]
  41. Geertz C. 1973a. Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays New York: Basic [Google Scholar]
  42. Geertz C. 1973b. Religion as a cultural system. See Geertz 1973a 87–125
  43. Hage G. 2012. Critical anthropological thought and the radical political imaginary today. Crit. Anthropol. 32:285–308 [Google Scholar]
  44. Hallowell AI. 1960. Ojibwa ontology, behavior, and world view. Culture in History: Essays in Honor of Paul Radin S Diamond 17–49 New York: Columbia Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  45. Haraway D. 1991a. A cyborg manifesto: science, technology, and socialist-feminism in the late twentieth century. See Haraway 1991b 149–81
  46. Haraway D. 1991b. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature New York: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  47. Haraway D. 1991c. Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective.. See Haraway 1991b 183–201
  48. Haraway D. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness Chicago: Prickly Paradigm [Google Scholar]
  49. Haraway D. 2008. When Species Meet Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press [Google Scholar]
  50. Harman G. 2012. Object-oriented France: the philosophy of Tristan Garcia. Continent 5:6–21 [Google Scholar]
  51. Harvey G. 2005. Animism: Respecting the Living World London: Hurst & Co. [Google Scholar]
  52. Hayward E. 2013. Disrupted water: notes on intoxifornication Presented at Annu. Meet. Soc. Soc. Stud. Sci., San Diego [Google Scholar]
  53. Helmreich S. 2009. Alien Ocean: Anthropological Voyages in Microbial Seas Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  54. Henare A, Holbraad M, Wastell S. 2007. Thinking Through Things: Theorising Artefacts Ethnographically London: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  55. Hoffmeyer J. 1996. Signs of Meaning in the Universe Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  56. Hoffmeyer J. 2008. Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs Scranton, PA: Univ. Scranton Press [Google Scholar]
  57. Holbraad M. 2012. Truth in Motion: The Recursive Anthropology of Cuban Divination Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  58. Holbraad M. 2013a. Scoping recursivity: a comment on Franklin and Napier. Camb. Anthropol. 31:123–27 [Google Scholar]
  59. Holbraad M. 2013b. Turning a corner: preamble for “The relative native” by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. HAU 3:469–70 [Google Scholar]
  60. Holbraad M, Pedersen MA. 2009. Planet M: the intense abstraction of Marilyn Strathern. Anthropol. Theory 9:371–94 [Google Scholar]
  61. Holbraad M, Pedersen MA, de Castro EV. 2014. The politics of ontology: anthropological positions. Fieldsights Theor. Comtemp. Cult. Anthropol. Online Jan. 13. http://culanth.org/fieldsights/462-the-politics-of-ontology-anthropological-positions [Google Scholar]
  62. Hornborg A. 1996. Ecology as semiotics: outlines of a contextualist paradigm for human ecology. See Descola & Pálsson 1996, pp. 45–62
  63. Ingold T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill London: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  64. Ingold T. 2007. Lines: A Brief History London/New York: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  65. Ingold T. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description London/New York: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  66. Jackson M. 1989. Paths Toward a Clearing: Radical Empiricism and Ethnographic Inquiry Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  67. Jackson M. 1996. Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  68. Jensen CB. 2013. Two forms of the outside: Castaneda, Blanchot, ontology. HAU 3:309–35 [Google Scholar]
  69. Jensen CB, Rödje K. 2010. Deleuzian Intersections: Science, Technology, Anthropology New York: Berghahn [Google Scholar]
  70. Jiménez AC, Willerslev R. 2007. ‘An anthropological concept of the concept’: reversibility among the Siberian Yukaghirs. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 13:527–44 [Google Scholar]
  71. Keane W. 2003. Semiotics and the social analysis of material things. Lang. Commun. 23:409–25 [Google Scholar]
  72. Kelly JD. 2014. Introduction: the ontological turn in French philosophical anthropology. HAU 4:259–69 [Google Scholar]
  73. Kirksey E. 2014. The Multispecies Salon Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  74. Kirksey E, Helmreich S. 2010. The emergence of multispecies ethnography. Cult. Anthropol. 25:545–76 [Google Scholar]
  75. Kohn E. 2002. Natural engagements and ecological aesthetics among the Ávila Runa of Amazonian Ecuador PhD Thesis, Univ. Wisc., Madison [Google Scholar]
  76. Kohn E. 2009. A conversation with Philippe Descola. Tipití 7:2135–152 [Google Scholar]
  77. Kohn E. 2013. How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology Beyond the Human Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  78. Kohn E. 2014. Toward an ethical practice in the Anthropocene. HAU 4:459–64 [Google Scholar]
  79. Kopenawa D, Albert B. 2013. The Falling Sky: Words of a Yanomami Shaman Cambridge, MA: Belknap [Google Scholar]
  80. Latour B. 1988. The Pasteurization of France Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  81. Latour B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  82. Latour B. 2013. An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  83. Latour B. 2014a. Agency at the time of the Anthropocene. New Lit. Hist. 45:1–18 [Google Scholar]
  84. Latour B. 2014b. Anthropology at the time of the Anthropocene: a personal view of what is to be studied Distinguished lecture. Presented at Am. Assoc. Anthropol. Annu. Meet., Washington, DC [Google Scholar]
  85. Law J, Mol A. 2008. The actor-enacted: Cumbrian sheep in 2001. Material Agency C Knappett, M Lambros 57–77 Berlin: Springer [Google Scholar]
  86. Lévi-Strauss C. 1966. The Savage Mind Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  87. Lévi-Strauss C. 1992 (1955). Tristes Tropiques New York: Penguin [Google Scholar]
  88. Lévy-Bruhl L. 1926. How Natives Think London: Allen & Unwin [Google Scholar]
  89. Lock M. 1993. Encounters with Aging Mythologies of Menopause in Japan and North America Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  90. Maniglier P. 2014. A metaphysical turn? Bruno Latour's An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Radic. Philos. 187:37–44 [Google Scholar]
  91. McLean S. 2009. Stories and cosmogonies: imagining creativity beyond “nature” and “culture.”. Cult. Anthropol. 24:213–45 [Google Scholar]
  92. Meillassoux Q. 2008. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency London/New York: Continuum [Google Scholar]
  93. Miller D. 2005. Materiality Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  94. Mol A. 2002. The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  95. Morita A. 2014. The ethnographic machine: experimenting with context and comparison in Strathernian ethnography. Sci. Technol. Hum. Values 39:214–35 [Google Scholar]
  96. Morton T. 2013. Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press [Google Scholar]
  97. Paleček M, Risjord M. 2013. Relativism and the ontological turn within anthropology. Philos. Soc. Sci. 43:3–23 [Google Scholar]
  98. Pandian A. 2015. Reel World: An Anthropology of Creation Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  99. Pandolfo S. 2007. The burning: finitude and the politico-theological imagination of illegal migration. Anthropol. Theory 7:329–63 [Google Scholar]
  100. Pandolfo S. 2008. The knot of the soul: postcolonial conundrums, madness, and the imagination. Postcolonial Disorders M-JD Good, STH Hyde, S Pinto, BJ Good 329–58 Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  101. Pedersen MA. 2011. Not Quite Shamans: Spirit Worlds and Political Lives in Northern Mongolia Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  102. Peirce CS. 1955. Logic as semiotic: the theory of signs. Philosophical Writings of Peirce J Buchler 98–119 New York: Dover [Google Scholar]
  103. Povinelli E. 2001. Radical worlds: the anthropology of incommensurability and inconceivability. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 30:319–34 [Google Scholar]
  104. Povinelli E. 2002. The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  105. Povinelli E. 2012. The will to be otherwise/the effort of endurance. South Atl. Q. 111:453–75 [Google Scholar]
  106. Povinelli E. 2015. Geontologies: A Requiem to Late Liberalism Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press. In press [Google Scholar]
  107. Raffles H. 2002. In Amazonia: A Natural History Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  108. Raffles H. 2012. Twenty-five years is a long time. Cult. Anthropol. 27:526–34 [Google Scholar]
  109. Ramos AR. 2012. The politics of perspectivism. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 41:481–94 [Google Scholar]
  110. Roberts E. 2013. Assisted existence: an ethnography of being in Ecuador. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 19:562–80 [Google Scholar]
  111. Sahlins M. 2014. On the ontological scheme of beyond nature and culture. HAU 4:281–90 [Google Scholar]
  112. Salmon G, Charbonnier P. 2014. The two ontological pluralisms of French anthropology. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 20:567–73 [Google Scholar]
  113. Salmond AJ. 2014. Transforming translations (part 2): addressing ontological alterity. HAU 4:155–87 [Google Scholar]
  114. Saussure Fd. 1986 (1916). Course in General Linguistics LaSalle, IL: Open Court [Google Scholar]
  115. Scott C. 2013. Ontology and ethics in Cree hunting: animism, totemism and practical knowledge. The Handbook of Contemporary Animism G Harvey 159–66 Durham, UK: Acumen [Google Scholar]
  116. Scott M. 2013. The anthropology of ontology (religious science?). J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 19:859–72 [Google Scholar]
  117. Singh B. 2015. Poverty and the Quest for Life: Spiritual and Material Striving in Rural India Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  118. Skafish P. 2011. From Another Psyche: The Other Consciousness of a Speculative American Mystic (The Life and Work of Jane Roberts) Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  119. Skafish P. 2014a. Anthropological metaphysics/philosophical resistance. Fieldsights Theor. Comtemp. Cult. Anthropol. Online Jan. 13. http://culanth.org/fieldsights/464-anthropological-metaphysics-philosophical-resistance [Google Scholar]
  120. Skafish P. 2014b. Introduction. Cannibal Metaphysics. Minneapolis, MN: Univocal [Google Scholar]
  121. Stengers I. 2005. The cosmopolitical proposal. Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy B Latour, P Weibel 994–1003 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press [Google Scholar]
  122. Stengers I. 2011. Cosmopolitics II Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press [Google Scholar]
  123. Stevenson L. 2014. Life Beside Itself: Imagining Care in the Canadian Arctic Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  124. Stevenson L, Kohn E. 2015. Leviathan: an ethnographic dream. Vis. Anthropol. Rev. 31:49–53 [Google Scholar]
  125. Stewart K. 2012. Precarity's forms. Cult. Anthropol. 27:518–25 [Google Scholar]
  126. Stocking GW. 1974. Introduction. A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883–1911 GW Stocking 58–59 Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  127. Strathern M. 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  128. Strathern M. 1991. Partial Connections Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield [Google Scholar]
  129. Strathern M. 1995. The Relation: Issues in Complexity and Scale Cambridge, UK: Prickly Pear [Google Scholar]
  130. Thompson C. 2007. Quit sniveling, cryo-baby, we'll work out which one's your mama. Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life MM Lock, J Farquhar 623–39 Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  131. Todd Z. 2014. An indigenous feminist's take on the ontological turn: ‘ontology’ is just another word for colonialism. Urbane Adventurer: Amiskwacî Blog Oct. 24. http://zoeandthecity.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/an-indigenous-feminists-take-on-the-ontological-turn-ontology-is-just-another-word-for-colonialism/ [Google Scholar]
  132. Tsing AL. 2014. Blasted landscapes (and the gentle arts of mushroom picking). The Multispecies Salon E Kirksey 87–110 Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  133. Turner TS. 2009. The crisis of late structuralism. Perspectivism and animism: rethinking culture, nature, spirit, and bodiliness. Tipití 7:1 [Google Scholar]
  134. Tylor EB. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom London: J Murray [Google Scholar]
  135. Venkatesan S, Carrithers M, Candea M, Sykes K, Holbraad M. 2010. Ontology is just another word for culture. Crit. Anthropol. 30:152–200 [Google Scholar]
  136. Vigh HE, Sausdal DB. 2014. From essence back to existence: anthropology beyond the ontological turn. Anthropol. Theory 14:49–73 [Google Scholar]
  137. Vilaça A. 2010. Strange Enemies: Indigenous Agency and Scenes of Encounters in Amazonia Durham NC: Duke Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  138. Viveiros de Castro E. 1998. Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism. J. R. Anthropol. Inst. 4:469–88 [Google Scholar]
  139. Viveiros de Castro E. 2004. Perspectival anthropology and the method of controlled equivocation. Tipití 2:3–22 [Google Scholar]
  140. Viveiros de Castro E. 2014. Cannibal Metaphysics Minneapolis, MN: Univocal [Google Scholar]
  141. Wagner R. 1981. The Invention of Culture Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press [Google Scholar]
  142. Weaver H. 2013. Becoming in kind: race, class, gender, and nation in cultures of dog rescue and dogfighting. Am. Q. 65:689–709 [Google Scholar]
  143. Willerslev R. 2007. Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood Among the Siberian Yukaghirs Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  144. Willerslev R. 2012. Laughing at the spirits in North Siberia: Is animism being taken too seriously?. E-Flux J. 36:July [Google Scholar]
  145. Zigon J. 2014. Attunement and fidelity: two ontological conditions for morally being-in-the-world. Ethos 42:16–30 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-014127
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error