The way types of divination move round the planet means it is not helpful to simply attribute one unitary ontology to specific techniques or to groups of practitioners. Explaining divination in terms of ‘ontology’ homogenizes cognitive and conceptual multiplicity, and pre-empts the possible outcomes of divination. Moreover, this contradicts the fundamentally open nature of divination, and the fact that in many forms of divination the reformulation of questions helps keep futures open. With examples drawn from Mambila spider divination, I suggest what an epidemiology of beliefs and ontologies that gather around divination could look like. On this account, divination acts as a ‘boundary object’, mediating both the cognitive differences among clients and the conceptual differences between clients and diviners.
{"title":"Divination and Ontologies","authors":"D. Zeitlyn","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.650208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.650208","url":null,"abstract":"The way types of divination move round the planet means it is not helpful to simply attribute one unitary ontology to specific techniques or to groups of practitioners. Explaining divination in terms of ‘ontology’ homogenizes cognitive and conceptual multiplicity, and pre-empts the possible outcomes of divination. Moreover, this contradicts the fundamentally open nature of divination, and the fact that in many forms of divination the reformulation of questions helps keep futures open. With examples drawn from Mambila spider divination, I suggest what an epidemiology of beliefs and ontologies that gather around divination could look like. On this account, divination acts as a ‘boundary object’, mediating both the cognitive differences among clients and the conceptual differences between clients and diviners.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74500095","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on Divination and Ontology","authors":"William Matthews","doi":"10.3167/SA.2021.650201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/SA.2021.650201","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76758474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Any form of divination can be intuitively compelling without the need for ontological elaboration, but practices like Chinese six lines prediction involve complex ontological accounts, raising the question of what effect this has on divination’s authority and persuasiveness. The explicit ontology of six lines prediction appears to make it especially persuasive, because it provides a coherent model of epistemology and causation that is readily comparable to scientific observation and description based on constant principles. Meanwhile, six lines prediction’s mathematical character adds to its intuitive authority. By relying on a predetermined system of correlates, it creates the impression that the diviner is not the source of the divinatory result or its interpretation. This likely allows six lines prediction to flourish in an environment in which it is officially classified as ‘superstition’.
{"title":"Reflective Ontology and Intuitive Credibility in Chinese Six Lines Prediction","authors":"W. Matthews","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.650206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.650206","url":null,"abstract":"Any form of divination can be intuitively compelling without the need for ontological elaboration, but practices like Chinese six lines prediction involve complex ontological accounts, raising the question of what effect this has on divination’s authority and persuasiveness. The explicit ontology of six lines prediction appears to make it especially persuasive, because it provides a coherent model of epistemology and causation that is readily comparable to scientific observation and description based on constant principles. Meanwhile, six lines prediction’s mathematical character adds to its intuitive authority. By relying on a predetermined system of correlates, it creates the impression that the diviner is not the source of the divinatory result or its interpretation. This likely allows six lines prediction to flourish in an environment in which it is officially classified as ‘superstition’.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76332236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article builds on ethnographic vignettes of mistrust, with the material stemming from the South Caucasus. Although mistrust has recently gained attention as a phenomenon sui generis, the impact of objects on the stirring of mistrust has been largely overlooked. The present article intends to fill this lacuna by investigating how certain objects are met with mistrust because their (material or discursive) surfaces and their contents seem inconsistent. The affective response to this perceived mismatch may be articulated in frustration or anger, but also in humor or longing. With respect to longing, I elaborate how this emotion stimulates searches for hidden truths that can be found in the realm of conspiracy theory.
{"title":"Suspicious Surfaces and Affective Mistrust in the South Caucasus","authors":"Florian Mühlfried","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.6503of1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.6503of1","url":null,"abstract":"This article builds on ethnographic vignettes of mistrust, with the material stemming from the South Caucasus. Although mistrust has recently gained attention as a phenomenon sui generis, the impact of objects on the stirring of mistrust has been largely overlooked. The present article intends to fill this lacuna by investigating how certain objects are met with mistrust because their (material or discursive) surfaces and their contents seem inconsistent. The affective response to this perceived mismatch may be articulated in frustration or anger, but also in humor or longing. With respect to longing, I elaborate how this emotion stimulates searches for hidden truths that can be found in the realm of conspiracy theory.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90354512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ethnic minority villages across Southwest China have recently experienced a dramatic increase in cultural heritage projects. Following new policies of rural development and the growth of tourism, villages are being converted into heritage sites to preserve the aesthetics of rurality and ethnicity. This article describes how architect scholars plan to create a ‘Chinese Traditional Village’ in a Dong autonomous district of Guizhou province, focusing in particular on the constraints of those plans and the negotiations. Rather than looking at plans as the end product, this article sheds light on the social dynamics of planning to reconsider the capacity for compromise between the interests and perspectives of planners, officials, and local inhabitants. Lasting compromises appear specifically in the materiality of buildings, pathways, and public space.
{"title":"Material Compromises in the Planning of a ‘Traditional Village’ in Southwest China","authors":"Suvi Rautio","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.6503of2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.6503of2","url":null,"abstract":"Ethnic minority villages across Southwest China have recently experienced a dramatic increase in cultural heritage projects. Following new policies of rural development and the growth of tourism, villages are being converted into heritage sites to preserve the aesthetics of rurality and ethnicity. This article describes how architect scholars plan to create a ‘Chinese Traditional Village’ in a Dong autonomous district of Guizhou province, focusing in particular on the constraints of those plans and the negotiations. Rather than looking at plans as the end product, this article sheds light on the social dynamics of planning to reconsider the capacity for compromise between the interests and perspectives of planners, officials, and local inhabitants. Lasting compromises appear specifically in the materiality of buildings, pathways, and public space.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81972656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What kind of knowledge is created through systems of divination? I will contend that the form of such knowledge is a type of pattern recognition—patterns that emerge in reference to a cosmology and by means of a stock of images. Divination creates knowledge of a moment and its circumstances. Reference to a sense of the encompassing world raises the issue of how any one means of divination and its outcomes is bound historically to a civilization. That will be my secondary topic of reflection. I will conclude with a discussion of worlds, recent history, speculation, and the ontology of divination in relation to the experience of uncertainty in which the object of knowledge is the momentary and its circumstances.
{"title":"Stocks of Images","authors":"S. Feuchtwang","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.650207","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.650207","url":null,"abstract":"What kind of knowledge is created through systems of divination? I will contend that the form of such knowledge is a type of pattern recognition—patterns that emerge in reference to a cosmology and by means of a stock of images. Divination creates knowledge of a moment and its circumstances. Reference to a sense of the encompassing world raises the issue of how any one means of divination and its outcomes is bound historically to a civilization. That will be my secondary topic of reflection. I will conclude with a discussion of worlds, recent history, speculation, and the ontology of divination in relation to the experience of uncertainty in which the object of knowledge is the momentary and its circumstances.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75991215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article investigates the relation between ancient divinatory theories and ontological assumptions about individuals, the gods, and the cosmos through the writings of Dio Chrysostom, Epictetus, and Maximus of Tyre—three philosophers who belong to the first Roman imperial age. By exploring their works in light of recent anthropological studies, this article will discuss how different divinatory systems generate, and are embedded in, specific ontologies. All three writers analyze divination as a means to bridge contingency and transcendence and to situate individuals within the cosmos. As such, their analysis of divination relates to specific ontological systems: a mono-ontology reducible to one divinematerial principle for Epictetus, and the poly-ontology of a graduated cosmos for Dio Chrysostom and Maximus of Tyre.
{"title":"Post-Hellenistic Perspectives on Divination, the Individual, and the Cosmos","authors":"E. Simonetti","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.650205","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.650205","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the relation between ancient divinatory theories and ontological assumptions about individuals, the gods, and the cosmos through the writings of Dio Chrysostom, Epictetus, and Maximus of Tyre—three philosophers who belong to the first Roman imperial age. By exploring their works in light of recent anthropological studies, this article will discuss how different divinatory systems generate, and are embedded in, specific ontologies. All three writers analyze divination as a means to bridge contingency and transcendence and to situate individuals within the cosmos. As such, their analysis of divination relates to specific ontological systems: a mono-ontology reducible to one divinematerial principle for Epictetus, and the poly-ontology of a graduated cosmos for Dio Chrysostom and Maximus of Tyre.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89825720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In studies of ancient Greek divination, oracles are often claimed to pronounce ambiguous but true statements within an intricately ordered cosmos. There exist, however, several problematic exceptions. In Book 2 of the Iliad, Zeus deliberately deceives Agamemnon through a prophetic dream; Hesiod’s Muses speak truths or lies depending on their mood; and Apollo’s utterances can harm as easily as help. The possibility of divine deceit forces us to reconsider the ontological assumptions within which early Greek divination was understood to operate. Adopting Philippe Descola’s concept of ‘analogism’, I argue that rather than a means of reading the cosmos, early Greek divination resembles more an act of diplomacy, an attempt to establish successful communication with supernatural beings within an always potentially fragmented world.
{"title":"Beyond Oracular Ambiguity","authors":"O. Almqvist","doi":"10.3167/sa.2021.650203","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/sa.2021.650203","url":null,"abstract":"In studies of ancient Greek divination, oracles are often claimed to pronounce ambiguous but true statements within an intricately ordered cosmos. There exist, however, several problematic exceptions. In Book 2 of the Iliad, Zeus deliberately deceives Agamemnon through a prophetic dream; Hesiod’s Muses speak truths or lies depending on their mood; and Apollo’s utterances can harm as easily as help. The possibility of divine deceit forces us to reconsider the ontological assumptions within which early Greek divination was understood to operate. Adopting Philippe Descola’s concept of ‘analogism’, I argue that rather than a means of reading\u0000the cosmos, early Greek divination resembles more an act of diplomacy, an attempt to establish successful communication with supernatural beings within an always potentially fragmented world.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74189290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines the role of affect in market-driven self-cultivation. Drawing on a study of extracurricular workshops for interpersonal skills in urban China, I describe programs that prioritize momentary excitement, associated with the state-endorsed colloquialism zheng nengliang (positive energy), while distinguishing this experience from the common registers of the exterior world. I define these settings as ‘pedagogies of affect’, activities that bring to the fore the short-lived and indeterminant attributes of affect without coherently serving discursive ideologies in trajectories of social engineering or neoliberal governmentality. This phenomenon demonstrates how the expansion of market-driven expertise for ‘person-making’ to new social groups globally reinforces ethical disjunctures between different social domains, as well as between individuals’ practical and aspirational pursuits.
{"title":"Zheng Nengliang and Pedagogies of Affect in Contemporary China","authors":"Gil Hizi","doi":"10.3167/SA.2020.650102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/SA.2020.650102","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines the role of affect in market-driven self-cultivation. Drawing on a study of extracurricular workshops for interpersonal skills in urban China, I describe programs that prioritize momentary excitement, associated with the state-endorsed colloquialism zheng nengliang (positive energy), while distinguishing this experience from the common registers of the exterior world. I define these settings as ‘pedagogies of affect’, activities that bring to the fore the short-lived and indeterminant attributes of affect without coherently serving discursive ideologies in trajectories of social engineering or neoliberal governmentality. This phenomenon demonstrates how the expansion of market-driven expertise for ‘person-making’ to new social groups globally reinforces ethical disjunctures between different social domains, as well as between individuals’ practical and aspirational pursuits.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74337725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In an era when grassroots activism is defined by the use of social media, the democratic potentials of the Internet are constantly confronted by a shifting set of practical and political obstacles. Organizations seeking to abolish violent policing, for example, use social media to mobilize widespread support, but can fail to solidify lasting influence within government institutions. Similarly, twenty-first-century ethnographers have gained the ability to interact with grassroots organizations over social media, but often fail to gain insight into a movement’s internal politics or day-to-day struggles. This article focuses on the challenges of anti-violence activists in Brazilian favelas following the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The author explores how ethnographers can create a sense of continuity out of digital failure.
{"title":"Digital Failures in Abolitionist Ethnography","authors":"J. Scott","doi":"10.3167/SA.2021.650108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3167/SA.2021.650108","url":null,"abstract":"In an era when grassroots activism is defined by the use of social media, the democratic potentials of the Internet are constantly confronted by a shifting set of practical and political obstacles. Organizations seeking to abolish violent policing, for example, use social media to mobilize widespread support, but can fail to solidify lasting influence within government institutions. Similarly, twenty-first-century ethnographers have gained the ability to interact with grassroots organizations over social media, but often fail to gain insight into a movement’s internal politics or day-to-day struggles. This article focuses on the challenges of anti-violence activists in Brazilian favelas following the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The author explores how ethnographers can create a sense of continuity out of digital failure.","PeriodicalId":51701,"journal":{"name":"Social Analysis","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4,"publicationDate":"2021-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75751532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：