Following up on my previous two posts (here and here) on buddhism and the recent visit of the Dalai Lama, I want to elaborate on the position I see for Buddhism in the struggle for a better world. What is Buddhism? It’s not a religion like any other. In those sects where deities are acknowledged, [...]
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Also tagged Bryant, Buddhism, capitalism, constructivism, Dalai Lama, Eightfold Path, Four Noble Truths, Huxley, meditation, Sorcery, struggle, theory
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This post is, in part, a request for help. I’m trying to understand the relationship between Isabelle Stengers’s concept of “practice” and an “ecology of practice” and the practice theories of Bourdieu, Ortner, et. al. Does anyone have any leads on this? I see many similarities and many differences, but I’m trying to understand the [...]
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
If agency is efficacy (at least in part), then expressing your agency means making a difference (to revitalize a tired trope).
Last night I was doing some reading and watching for the upcoming UMD Anthropology Theory Discussion Group session on materiality, embodiment, and non-human agency. I was thinking about this concept of agency that’s so important to my work and to the work of others who have inspired me – Latour, Stengers, Bennett, Bryant, etc. First [...]
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Also tagged agency, Bennett, Bryant, determination, efficacy, Haraway, intentionality, Latour, Materialism, science, work
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Life on here has been pretty slow lately. This is because, for the past month or so, I’ve been preparing for my first area exam. Last week, I took it and submitted on Friday. Now I’m just waiting for the grade and prepping for the beginning of the semester, so I have a little space [...]
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Also tagged anthropology, Callon, culture, Haraway, hybridity, Latour, Law, methods, Nature, Nature/Culture, ontological constructivism, post-constructivism, theory
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One of the most important things I’ve taken from my philosophical engagements – notably Levi Bryant, Gregory Bateson, and Bruno Latour – is that change (even existence) takes work. I’ve talked a lot about work before. This is because it is, for me, a foundational concept. In order to understand something, we have to follow [...]
In the recent edition of Imponderabilia (in which I have an article, but that’s not what we’re talking about here), Alisa Maximova from the National State University in Russia has a nice little piece about “Understanding Ethnographic Work: Through Fieldnotes and Diaries.” In it she draws upon the sociology of science – specifically Kerin Knorr-Cetina, [...]
On the train ride home from Connecticut this weekend, I was finally able to put some time in and finish reading Isabelle Stenger’s Capitalist Sorcery: Breaking the Spell. I was going to write a whole synopsis of the book with commentary, but Adam Robbert has posted a link to a review that does that work [...]
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
This is the best definition of political ecology I’ve encountered. From Isabelle Stengers: To have made political questions proliferate by tearing them away from the fields of expertise in which they were confined is the major contribution of political ecology. Endangered species, climate change, pollution, the sharing of water resources, the energy crisis, desertification, all [...]
An extended quote from Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) by Hakim Bey that reminds me very much of Isabelle Stengers: The universe wants to play. Those who refuse out of dry spiritual greed & choose pure contemplation forfeit their humanity – those who refuse out of dull anguish, those who hesitate, lose their chance at divinity – [...]
