Radical alterity is just another way of saying “reality”: a reply to Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

As a response to Eduardo Viveiros de Castro’s critique of my essay “Fetishes are gods in the process of construction,” this paper enters into critical engagement with anthropological proponents of what has been called the “ontological turn.” Among other engagements, I note that my own reflections on Malagasy fanafody, or medicine, are informed by just the sort of self-conscious reflections my informants make on epistemology, something that anthropologists typically ignore. After making note of the arguments of Roy Bhaskar that most post-Cartesian philosophy rests on an “epistemic fallacy,” I further argue that a realist ontology, combined with broad theoretical relativism, is a more compelling political position than the “ontological anarchy” and theoretical intolerance of ontological turn exponents

Reflections on reflections

Comment on Ortner, Sherry. 2016. “Dark anthropology and its others: Theory since the eighties.” Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6 (1): 47–73

“Many seasons ago”: slavery and its rejection among foragers on the Pacific coast of North America

Anthropologists have traditionally classified foragers on the Pacific coast of North America into two major culture areas, characterized by strikingly different social and ethical systems. These are “California” and the adjacent “Northwest Coast.” Foragers in the northern part of California exhibit many elements of Weber's “Protestant ethic,” such as the moral injunction for community leaders to work hard, seek spiritual purpose by introspection, and pursue monetary wealth while avoiding material excess. By contrast, the social organization of Northwest Coast foragers bears comparison with that of courtly estates in medieval Europe, where a leisured class of nobles achieved status through hereditary ranking, competitive banquets, dazzling aesthetic displays, and the retention of household slaves captured in war. Remarkably, the coexistence of two such clearly opposed value systems among foragers inhabiting adjacent parts of the Pacific littoral has excited little interest in anthropologists, historians, or archaeologists to date. We consider the implications, which cast doubt on some key orthodoxies concerning the nature of culture areas, modes of subsistence, and political evolution. We argue that the political creativity of foraging peoples has been severely underrated

Use of Incremental Adaptation and Habituation Regimens for Mitigating Optokinetic Side-effects

The use of incremental and repeated exposures regimens have been put forth as effective means to mitigate visually induced motion sickness based on the Dual Process Theory (DPT) (Groves & Thompson, 1970) of neural plasticity. In essence, DPT suggests that by incrementing stimulus intensity the depression opponent process should be allowed to exert greater control over the net outcome than the sensitization opponent process, thereby minimizing side-effects. This conceptual model was tested by empirically validating the effectiveness of adaptation, incremental adaptation, habituation, and incremental habituation regimens to mitigate side-effects arising from exposure to an optokinetic drum. Forty college students from the University of Central Florida participated in the experimentation and were randomly assigned to a regimen. Efforts were taken to balance distribution of participants in the treatments for gender and motion sickness susceptibility. Results indicated that overall, the application of an incremental regimen is effective in reducing side-effects (e.g. malaise, dropout rates, postural instabilities, etc.) when compared to a non-incremented regimen, whether it be a one-time or repeated exposure. Furthermore, the application of the Motion History Questionnaire (MHQ) (Graybiel & Kennedy, 1965) for identifying high and low motion sickness susceptible individuals proved effective. Finally, gender differences in motion sickness were not found in this experiment as a result of balancing susceptibility with the gender subject variable. Findings from this study can be used to aid effective design of virtual environment (VE) usage regimens in an effort to manage cybersickness. Through pre-exposure identification of susceptible individuals via the MHQ, exposure protocols can be devised that may extend limits on exposure durations, mitigate side-effects, reduce dropout rates, and possibly increase training effectiveness. This document contains a fledgling set of guidelines form VE usage that append those under development by Stanney, Kennedy, & Kingdon (In press) and other previously established guidelines form simulator use (Kennedy et al., 1987). It is believed that through proper allocation of effective VE usage regimens cybersickness can be managed, if susceptible individuals are identified prior to exposure

On Kings

In anthropology, as much as in the current popular imagination, kings remain figures of fascination and intrigue. As the cliché goes, kings continue to die spectacular deaths only to remain subjects of vitality and long life. This collection of essays by a teacher and his student — two of the world’s most distinguished anthropologists— explores what kingship actually is, historically and anthropologically. The divine, the stranger, the numinous, the bestial—the implications for understanding kings and their sacred office are not limited to questions of sovereignty, but issues ranging from temporality and alterity to piracy and utopia; indeed, the authors argue that kingship offers us a unique window into the fundamental dilemmas concerning the very nature of power, meaning, and the human condition. With the wit and sharp analysis characteristic of these two thinkers, this volume opens up new avenues for how an anthropological study of kingship might proceed in the 21st century

A response to Anastasia Piliavsky’s the wrong kind of freedom? A review of David Graeber’s the utopia of rules: on technology, stupidity and the secret joys of bureaucracy

Brooklyn/London: Melville House, 2015, 261 page

Crises du capitalisme, migrations et bureaucratie européenne

Nina Živančević : Nous sommes tous préoccupés par la crise européenne, par les migrants et réfugiés, pas seulement en Grèce mais aussi en « Mitteleuropa » ou dans l’Europe de l’Est. Considères-tu ces différentes manifestations de la crise comme des éléments isolés et différents ou les vois-tu comme des événements intrinsèquement connectés ? David Graeber : Vois-tu, je considérerais tous ces éléments dans un processus continu : le développement de l’Empire, l’Empire dans sa chute et sa désinté..