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- Convenor:
-
Akira Okazaki
(Hitotsubashi University)
- Location:
- Multi Purpose Room
- Start time:
- 16 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
This panel is concerned not only with the recent anthropological questions of anthropocentrism (culture-nature, human-animal, self-other, individual-dividual or nondualist ontologies) but also with the slightly awkward question about the ontological status of anthropological knowledge of the 'human'.
Long Abstract:
If anthropocentrism was developed within the western epistemological history, it is not surprising that the message of anti-anthropocentrism is now disseminated mainly from the West. It is a kind of one-man show. Likewise, if the European Enlightenment successfully brought about a great change in 'our' ways of thinking about the world, it is not amazing that the IUAES conference is held in non-western countries. So it seems challenging to recover/fill the space/lacunae left by the 'Enlightened' side of anthropological knowledge. This panel attempts this by examining:
First; the possibility of applying Buddhist thought and Zenist Zeami's insight to the anthropological discussion of ontology/epistemology;
Second, the ontological notion of the 'shadow' among a Sudanese people compared with the 'man' who created his positivity in the human sciences as a project of the Enlightenment;
Third, ways of living in the plural world with non-human actors who participate in rituals among a Yunnan people of China;
Fourth, the possibility of reconstituting 'human' within the discourses of the Anthropocene by exploring the ways human existence hinges on the livelihoods of microbes though they are indifferent to human 'self'-interest.
In fact, anthropology has been recovering the invisible/shadow side of the human, rather than focusing into a conspicuously visible entity of the human. But our anthropological discursive tradition seems increasingly prone to turn to the Enlightenment project. This is why it is intriguing to reconsider, seriously and playfully, the ontological status of anthropology rather than the anthropology of ontologies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Atsuki Nakagami (The University of Tokyo)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will present a perspective on how to build bridges between anthropology and Buddhism. The discussion will begin by examining the works by Levi-Strauss who gave high praise to Buddhist thought. By analyzing its premise, I hope to shed light on discussion of ontology / epistemology.
Paper long abstract:
Following a series of two works with the title "Structural Anthropology," Claude Levi-Strauss named his third book "The View from Afar." This name was borrowed from an idea in Zeami's book on the theory of Noh, the classical Japanese performing art influenced by Buddhist cosmology. However, "The View from Afar" has never been analyzed taking into consideration some of the fundamental insights of Buddhist thought, nor has the last chapter of his book "Tristes Tropiques," which gives high praise of the Buddhist world view.
Within Buddhist thought, the ontology of the Abhidharma school asserts that the fundamental layer of our experience of the world goes beyond our ontological / epistemological assumptions, while the schools of Mahayana Buddhism, the "middle way" and "mind only" schools, explain a non-dualistic understanding of ultimate phenomena. Because Buddhist philosophy gives a comprehensive theory of behavior and action without relying on a specific "subject," there is a space it can contribute to the discussion of the human / nature dichotomy within anthropology as well as giving an alternative approach to cultural theory in general.
In this paper, I hope to give some preliminary thoughts on how Buddhist thought could be used within anthropology, and how it could shed light on some of the discussion of ontology/epistemology and the idea of an imagined culture / society that are found to a degree within "The View from Afar."
Akira Okazaki (Hitotsubashi University)
Paper short abstract:
Early Foucault wrote for dream, madness and against the human sciences that created the positivity of 'man'. With his post-humanist questions and the ontological notion of the 'shadow' derived from my ethnographic study, I discuss how our anthropological discursive tradition was inevitably born.
Paper long abstract:
Among the Gamk people, living in the precarious borderland between Sudan and South Sudan, dreaming is the experience of events in the shadow (kuuth) side of this world, and it is not only a personal but social experience; a vital means of understanding elusive world events. Oddly enough, the Gamk term for 'dreams' also denotes a group of clowns or follies.
In Europe, the devaluation of dreams came about simultaneously as madness was being expelled from the society around the middle of the seventeenth century, and a new crystal-clear concept of reason brought about a great change in the European world, as illustrated by Foucault.
Sooner or later, the ontological status of dreams changed through invagination. It was no longer seen as being given by the external divine but belonging to, even generated by, the 'divinised' self. This followed by other divisions such as real world/illusory world, public/private and objective/subjective. It seems unlikely that, before such divisions were established, one could ask properly such a human scientific question as how 'history' and 'society' shape individual human minds or how 'history' and 'society' are shaped by human invention.
Foucault, then, argues, 'psychoanalysis and ethnology are rather 'counter-sciences' because they 'dissolve' man by perpetually exposing his own unconscious and historicity and ceaselessly 'unmake' that very man who creates and re-creates his positivity in the human sciences. I then discuss how our anthropological discursive tradition emerged to save our 'shadow' from the regime of positivity.
Tomohisa Abe (Tokyo Metropolitan University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper considers the construction of social relationship which ritual practices create among Hani village in China. Their "Yoqliq" (custom) is a key concept, as they construct stable relationship between actors, including human and non-human, through the practical schema which their Yoqliq provides.
Paper long abstract:
This paper considers construction of social relationship which ritual practices create among Hani village in Yunnan, China. Their everyday life actually is fully filled with numerous rituals; To feed their ancestors, deal with evil spirits living in forest, soothe powerful tree, revitalize village spring, extinct insects which ravage terraced rice fields, call back human or paddy soul and so on. It is very essential for villagers to participate such ritual and feast continually to keep his/her social relationship active. As every ritual requires suitable time and space, participants, implements and sacrifice animals, it seems to create emergent networks including various actors such as hosts and guests, patrikin and affines, ancestors, spirits, tree, spring, insects, souls, ritual knives and animals. In this paper, I will argue the networks on which non-human also naturally participate, illustrating their "Yoqliq" concept that effectively contribute toward its reproduction. Yoqliq is a comprehensive concept that implicates traditions, customs, rules or way, often accompanied with ethnic group, region, village name. The villagers seem to construct stable relationship between various actors including non-human through the practical schema which Yoqliq provides, but on the other hand, they sufficiently recognize there is many different kind of Yoqliq as Pyulniu (Han Chinese or China as nation state) Yoqliq, Haq'aol (Yi) Yoqliq or another village's Yoqliq and there can be different distributions of actors. We may understand they are living in one of the possible plural worlds and their style of "perspectivism".