Grand entretien avec François Laplantine

Objective

Based on an interview with François Laplantine, anthropologist and professor emeritus at the University Lumière Lyon 2, the aim is to explore the main milestones in his career, from the philosophy of evil to the anthropology of illness and ethnopsychiatry, in particular psychoanalytic ethnopsychiatry, then from work on Brazil and Japan to a focus on the theme of artistic creation.

Method

The method consists of an interview with François Laplantine. The questions deal first with his personal background, then with the reasons for the evolution of the themes on which his works are based, and finally with his exploration of various fields of creation: literature, cinema, theatre and contemporary dance.

Results

François Laplantine describes his transition from the philosophy of evil, with his first thesis in philosophy under the supervision of Paul Ricœur, to the anthropology of illness, with his encounter with Devereux. He describes his work on the question of métissages, then his transition from psychoanalysis to an initiation into Candomblé in Brazil, a practice of the multiple that he likens to different forms of theatre in France. He then traces the evolution of his writings from his explorations in Brazil and Japan to artistic creation, particularly literature, music, dance, and film. He discusses the work of many artists, as well as different types of staging of disasters, particularly minimalist stagings in Japanese theatre, with nō and butô. The question of language, of the unspeakable and the invisible, appears central to his work in relation to creation. He also discusses his work on the imaginary and the off-screen, as well as on time and space, in relation to the issue of creation.

Discussion

François Laplantine defends the idea that one of the missions of contemporary arts is to attempt to express catastrophe; he explores the limits of language and argues that one of the functions of theatre, and even more so of contemporary dance, is to stage the drama of the inadequacy of language. Recourse to artistic creation is a necessity, in the tension between telling and showing.

Conclusion

Exploring artistic creation appears to be a royal road for an anthropologist like François Laplantine.