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Anthropological Theory
2014, Vol. 14(1) 4973
From essence back to ! The Author(s) 2014
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turn
Henrik Erdman Vigh
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
This article takes a critical look at the ontological turn. Illuminating the turns theor-
etical point of departure, and clarifying its anthropological implications, the article
argues that two key problems arise if the theory is to be taken at face value. It
points, first of all, to the difficulty in studying radical alterity, in the manner proposed
by the new understanding of ontology within anthropology. If anthropology is, as the
ontological turn advocates, not a study of multiple world-views but of essentially
different worlds altogether, how, we ask, does one approach this methodologically?
Put in other words, if we really believe in radically essential, fundamental ontological
difference with what registers can we, then, conceive and describe ontological others in
ways that do them ethnographic justice? Secondly, the article ponders the issues of
radical essentialism and immanence advocated by the ontological turn, and shows how
an anthropological endeavour that advocates incommensurable difference, as an ana-
lytical point of departure, may be problematic in relation to the impact that anthropol-
ogy has outside academia. As history has so vividly shown us, anthropological
constructions of radical alterity and ontological difference offer themselves, in social
terms, all too easily to political constructions of Otherness.
Keywords
C/culture, essentialism, existence, objectification, ontology, world(view)s
Corresponding author:
Henrik Erdman Vigh, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, ster Farigmagsgade 5,
Copenhagen 1358, Denmark.
Email: hv@anthro.ku.dk
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50 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
Introduction
Over the last decade or so, the notion of ontology has gained new prominence
within anthropology and related disciplines. In an amalgamation of in vogue the-
orists, such as Labour, Deleuze, and Viveiros de Castro, a body of theory has
emerged that has made it fashionable to positively argue for distinct and incom-
mensurable worlds, and for the merit of reintroducing ideas of radical alterity and
essentialism into anthropology (cf. Henare et al., 2007: 2; Holbraad, 2012: 18.;
Pedersen, 2012: 4). Within this ontological turn, people, perspectives, ideas and
entities are, we are told, not to be understood as merely culturally or socially
dierentiated from one another, but also dierent-in-being; not alter as in alter-
native but as in radical alter ontologically dierent in core and kind. By focusing
on ontology, the turn thus proposes a multi-realist perspective, which, ideally, will
allow anthropologists the possibility of understanding otherness without privile-
ging an occidental (Euro-American ontological) perspective. The ontological turn
strives, thus, to grasp dierence in a manner that truly recognizes i.e. both per-
ceives and accepts alterity and thereby manages to do it ethnographic justice.
The ontological turn is, in this respect, intriguing. Not only does it forcefully
argue for the existence of real, distinct otherness, somehow waiting to be found, it
also privileges anthropology as a discipline that holds the key to understanding the
world in all its multiplicity, and positions the anthropologist as the very intellectual
that is able to access and move between these many incommensurable realities and
theorize the insights gained. The perspective is, accordingly, not only presented as
an innovative analytical position but also as a counterweight to the last 20 years of
nervous post-modern reexivity and epistemological uncertainty within anthropol-
ogy, as it bestows ontological certitude upon a discipline otherwise characterized by
a radical lack of it.
By being simultaneously ethnographically grounded, theoretically playful and
inter-disciplinarily potent, the ontological turn has appealed to and been embraced
by signicant parts of the anthropological community. It has led to some interest-
ing monographs (see Pedersen, 2011; Holbraad, 2012; Kohn, 2013, as the most
obvious examples), and ontology is quickly becoming one of the more popular
terms within the discipline, used to designate everything from ideas, to concepts,
things, groups and peoples.1 Yet, despite its popularity, there is a woeful lack of
critical scrutiny of the ontological turn.2 The advocates of the concept are full of
praise for its merits, but surprisingly few people have focused more fully on its pros
and cons. This article aims to ll this gap by querying the current popularity of the
ontological turn within anthropology and reecting on its positive and negative
consequences.
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Vigh and Sausdal 51
modus operandi. By conating the ontic and the ontological, the turn positions
itself as anti-logocentric. What is has no external point of reference, which
means that its meaning should not be sought outside itself but essentially in the
thing itself.
In order to do the ontological turn justice we will, then, seek to understand the
ontological turn in precisely the same way that the theory proposes that anthro-
pologists should conduct their analyses in general. This means, rst of all, taking
what is stated at face value: Things are what they are, the proponents of the
ontological turn state (Henare et al., 2007: 7). This ontic, rather than ontological,
premise is meant to be recursive, and not merely tautological. It is used to specify
that we need to approach our ethnographical data without presuming that they
signify, represent, or stand for something other than what they purport to be, i.e. to
see them as immanence rather than transcendence. Secondly, the article envisages
the consequences that the ontological turns ideas have for the discipline, as well as
the world that they enter into. Mirroring the turns Latourian tendencies we will
look at the eects that the ontological turn generates rather than the (undoubtedly
noble) intentions behind it (cf. Leach, 2007: 169).
It should be made clear from the start that our criticism is not directed at the
ontological turns focus on non-human beings, things or concepts but rather at its
concomitant view of people. There is, as we shall see, a common conceptual slip-
page within the ontological turn, whereby the perceived ontological nature of
things is transferred implicitly or explicitly onto groups and people, consequently
attening social worlds. The article does not, in other words, oer a general cri-
tique of the notion of ontology. It does not engage in a for or against debate of the
concept, which strikes us as being slightly absurd, but looks at the so-called onto-
logical turn as a specic body of theory that seeks to describe what ontologies are
and how being should be studied. In doing so, the article dwells on the signicance
of the turn within the discipline of anthropology and, not least, its wider eects
and potential consequences. More specically, the article progresses by looking at
the primary theoretical points of departure within the ontological turn; the discip-
linary ambitions and methodological complications that dene it; and, as said, its
academic and political implications. While we admire the intellectual ambition and
disciplinary enthusiasm of its proponents, we are less enthusiastic about its meth-
odological and theoretical arguments and their ramications.
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52 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
of social being is, in Jacksons work, approached with clear emphases on the rela-
tional, inter-subjective and interactional, and grounded in an encompassing
humanism. Similarly, working with a soft post-Heiddeggerian notion of ontology
(see Keane, 2013), Kapferer uses the concept to illuminate politically, historically
and socially situated being. Both authors, thus, beautifully describe and explain the
manifold of being-in-the-world as humans seek to grasp and anchor the way they
are thrown into existence.
The humanism of these earlier debates and perspectives stands in direct oppos-
ition to the current ontological turn. Where the former captures dierence within a
common humanity, the latter moves toward a post-human and post-social inves-
tigation of separate worlds and realities. There is, in the ontological turn, not one
nature (human) and many cultures (people), but many worlds of separate and
incommensurable ontologies, or multiple natures, as Viveiros de Castro terms it
(1998, 2003, 2011). Arguing against a notion of shared humanity, the ontological
turn can thus be seen as part of a larger trend in non-representational theory and
philosophical post-humanism (Hinchlie, 1999; Miah, 2007; Whatmore, 2004;
Haraway, 2004; Latour, 2007). It inscribes itself into a body of theory that is
focused on rethinking the human as well as the social within the social sciences,
and challenges the assumptions that empirical material can or should be under-
stood in relation to ulterior causes, hidden forces or related to overarching spheres
of commonality such as, for example, humanity.
What denes the turn, proclaimed in the ontological turn, is, accordingly, not
the use of the concept of ontology, with its insistence on taking the eld seriously
(as if others do not), its focus on things/materiality, animals, spirits and other non-
human forms, and its desire to study people through their own conceptual universe.
In fact, all of the above are common aspects of anthropology and go back to the
beginnings of the discipline. The main propositions within the ontological turn are
classical anthropological virtues. What sets the turn apart is its fondness for the
adjective radical and its ensuing call for radical essentialism and post-humanism.3
Just as concepts and things cannot be understood through reference to ulterior
spheres of meaning, but should be researched in terms of what they are in situ, so
people and their endeavours, the ontological turn advocates, should not be under-
stood through an underlying, generic notion of what it is to be human or through
reference to social parameters; thus, it mirrors Haraways Latourian paraphrase
we have never been human (2004: 2). The after, in the post-human dimensions, is
a move away from human dierences as sociocultural variations of a common
humanity, and toward a focus on radical alterity; from dierent worldviews to
dierent worlds altogether.
Worlds apart
Exactly the question of whether we inhabit ontologically dierent worlds or not has
recently been the focus of a range of dierent publications, panel debates,
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Vigh and Sausdal 53
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54 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
often promoted as the very point of departure of the ontological turn, in which the
three editors (Henare, Holbraad, and Wastel) in identical manner argue that:
[T]he presumption of natural unity and cultural dierence epitomised in the anthro-
pos is no longer tenable. If we are to take others seriously, instead of reducing their
articulations to mere cultural perspectives or beliefs (i.e. worldviews), we can con-
ceive them as enunciations of dierent worlds or natures. (Henare et al., 2007: 10,
emphasis in original)
The assumption . . . has always been that anthropology is an episteme indeed, the
episteme of others episteme, which we call cultures . . . [Anthropologists] assume that
both anthropology and its object are epistemic in character. If we are all living in the
same world . . . then the task left to social scientists is to elucidate the various systemic
formulations of knowledge (epistemologies) that oer dierent accounts of that one
world. [Because of this, anthropology] cannot but be a study of the dierent ways the
world (the one world of Nature) is represented by dierent people [i.e. worldviews].
(Henare et al., 2007: 9, emphasis in original)
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Vigh and Sausdal 55
Anthropologists, who had to deal with pre-moderns and were not requested as much
to imitate natural sciences, were more fortunate and allowed their actors to deploy a
much richer world. In many ways, ANT [actor-network theory] is simply an attempt
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56 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
The above statement manages, within a few lines, both to elevate the anthropo-
logical endeavour to a stellar position as well as to portray it as a strange study of
the remote, anachronistic and exotic. Latour has found his pre-modern in the
history of the discipline, and is using the insight to advocate an inductive point of
departure for sociology. Given this, it is somewhat telling that so many anthro-
pologists have thrown themselves (uncritically) at the feet of a social theorist whose
aim seems to be to explain (very old-hat) anthropology and ethnography to soci-
ologists; the reason being, one presumes, that we are easily charmed by regurgita-
tions of our own insights. However, where Latour becomes post-social
(deconstructing the social in a similar manner as anthropology deconstructed the
concept of culture some 20 years ago), his critique of the social does not seem
applicable to anthropology, as it has never been appropriate for us to write up the
eld in predened variables. Most anthropologists are taught and strive to
approach it with a reexive awareness of our own perspective and an aim to
grasp the perspectives of the people we study.6 Latours critique of the social
may be interesting, insightful and beautifully phrased, but anthropologically his
straw-man dissolves indicated in the fact, of course, that it is exactly where he
seeks advice.
In relation to the ontological turn the connection should, however, be clear.
Where Latour argues against the social as a predened, shared condition, the
ontological turn argues, in identical ways, against the human, in what we may
call paraphrasing Latour himself, a translation without transformation. In both
cases the argument boils down to a classical anthropological ambition viz. to
secure that the knowledge one gains from the eld does not merely reect ones
implicit presumptions. This is, of course, a pivotal anthropological point of depart-
ure and accordingly not where the ontological turn separates itself from ordinary
anthropology. It does so in its idea of the degree of the Other and otherness: by not
being merely a study of alterity, but of radical alterity.
However, the question remains, what is won or lost with this re-emergent focus
on radical essentialism and radical alterity? The ideas may, at rst, appear fruitful
and the focus on dierent realities or worlds alluring, yet, as we shall see, a range of
methodological and political complications emerge when undertaking an analysis
that is both post-social and post-human led via notions of exotic, essentialist and
radical dierence and ltered through non-representational theory. Where the
methodological problems centre on the very possibility of carrying out the
project proposed, the political problems are of a more potential nature, focused
on the possible eects of radically post-human anthropology. Both are, however,
heightened by the ontological turns fetishization of otherness and lack of
reexivity.
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58 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
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Vigh and Sausdal 59
dicult to imagine as shared, and if it can be shared, it does not seem all that
radically dierent, nor post-humanist, but perhaps just dierent . . . ? It appears
dicult to have it both ways. The perspectives representatives are themselves
aware of the possible problem; however, they do not, we think, succeed in solving
the puzzle:
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60 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
candidates for logical scrutiny. When you can show the contradictions involved,
you have identied alterity.
Step 3. Specify the conceptual conicts that generate the contradictions. Which
concepts are involved? What are the associated assumptions, corollaries, con-
comitants, consequences, and so on? How do they relate to the more transparent
and logically unproblematic parts of your description?
Step 4. Experiment with redening in dierent ways the concepts that generate
contradictions. Your criterion of truth is the logical cogency of your redenitions.
This involves two minimum requirements: (a) that your redenitions remove the
contradictions that motivate them and (b) that they do not generate new ones in
relation to other parts of your descriptions of your material. NB. While the
concepts that you are redening in these ways are derived from your (variously
[un]successful) descriptions of the ethnographic or archaeological materials,
responsibility for your acts of reconceptualization is your own. Your material
will not give you the answers[!].
Step 5. The litmus test for gauging the success of your ontographic analytical
experiment is its transparency with respect to your material. This means that,
while your claim to truth regarding your conceptualizations resides in their logi-
cal cogency, the nal test they have to pass is representational (which is not
equivalent to saying that the nal goal of the exercise is an act of representation,
as per the above): if and only if your conceptual redenitions allow you to articu-
late true representations of the phenomena whose description initially mired you
in contradiction is your work done. (Holbraad in Alberti et al., 2011: 908, empha-
sis added)
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Vigh and Sausdal 61
found9 a loss that is not only methodologically problematic but also politically
so, which we will return to later in the article. The notion of some representations
being true seems as problematic as the idea of eliminating contradiction.
Doubt?
The underlying idea of truth and certainty (see also Holbraad, 2012) leads us to
another area of unease with the theoretical premises of the ontological turn. The
recursive point of departure is, as mentioned, founded upon the idea that what
people tell us about their world and its constitution should not be interpreted
with reference to other spheres of meaning but accepted as stated. The ontological
turn becomes an argument for pure indexicality with an almost one-to-one relation-
ship between signies and signiants or rather, between what is meant and what is
expressed. This is dicult to imagine, and probably even more dicult to nd
empirically, if only because uncertainty and ambivalence are such common parts
of life exactly because language is not exhaustive of reality (Grue, 2012: 9;
Wittgenstein, 1999) and thus, that things are never only what they are stated to
be. The turns ontic argument, that things are what they are and that they can be
conceptually grasped without the need for representational mediation, appears fun-
damentally undermined by peoples frequently expressed doubt and ambivalence
about the nature of the real they inhabit.10 Stating what is may, on the contrary, be
seen as an imposition of singularity, an act of power dening the state of what is,
which is why such speech acts are so often contested and debated. The ontic argu-
ment that things are what they are amounts in the ontological turn to a fallacy of
misplaced concreteness leaving little room for such common sentiments as doubt,
ambivalence and ambiguity. Yet are exactly these phenomena not common com-
panions of articulation of faith, singularity, and certainty (cf. Kierkegaard, 1895), as
attempts to dene what is are commonly haunted by what if, extrapolated into its
multitude potentialities, negotiated and contested from without or within, intro-
spectly or extrospectly, via our imagination (Vigh, 2006a, 2006b)?
Statements and denitions of what is are not met with blind faith in our own
work (Vigh, 2011). Rather, such impositions of meaning are questioned, called into
doubt and investigated for hidden intentions and interests. They are interpreted (!)
as a calling into being that is judged in relation to the elds of interest that they are
seen to stem from investigated for the intentions within them. This, consequently,
brings perspectives back to the etymology of the concept as per specere, looking
through or into rather than Viveiro de Castros version of tunnel vision.
Perspectives, in our eldwork, thus, commonly take the form of suspicion (liter-
ally looking underneath), probes (a searching and wandering vision), and
inspection, as what is stated or dened are regularly seen as attempts at ontolo-
gizing rather than accepted as ontologies. We may, in other words, object to the
recursive credo of things being what they are by pointing out that such worlds of
pure iconicity would leave little room for skepticism and ambiguity, and seem to
nullify the need for tropes, metaphor and metonymy.
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62 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
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64 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
Exoticism plays into the politicians hand by reinforcing and contributing to . . . anti-
pathies toward other peoples of the world. Culture and dierence have become the
most powerful political paradigms fuelling action, such as terrorism and counter-
terrorism, in the modern world. We know all to well the dangers of these notions of
ethnic purity and ethnic separation, where a common strategy of nation-states and
anti-state movements alike is the xing of ethnic identities . . . within territorial and
other categorical boundaries. (Rapport and Overing, 2000: 118, emphasis in original)
Ontologically dumped
The ontological turn, it seems, runs the risk of doing the work of the culturalism
that its proponents claim it wishes to be distinguished from. Where the concept of
culture was originally presented as a way to describe dierences between people,
with a shared human cultural faculty as its cornerstone, we have over the last 20
years of culturalism seen how cultures have become naturalized and understood
as distinct and incompatible worlds in themselves, thus designating more than
mere representations. Putting it dierently, culture has gone from epistemology
to ontology. It has become ontologically dumped (cf. Hastrup, 2004: 11) changed
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Vigh and Sausdal 65
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66 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
of its capability by the proponents of the turn, such totality of meaning somewhat
causes the concept to lose its analytical potency, as it diminishes its ability to
dierentiate and discriminate, and, once again like the reied concept of culture,
puts it at risk of imploding under the weight of its omnisignicance (cf. Baumann,
1996).
The problem with the denition is that it becomes tremendously unclear what
the concept covers, as it is stretched along a gamut including things, practices,
concepts, ideas, perspectives and, not least, the relations between them, as well
as being constantly evoked when referring to the various people who think all
of these. Much as with the reied concept of culture, there seems to be a conceptual
slippage at play where ontology glides from denoting non-humans, things and
concepts to denoting groups or people such as, for example, shamans, magicians,
protesters and migrants, etc., who are seen to have a unique perspective on the
world, and thus a certain ontology, to ever larger groups, such as religious and
ethnic communities and strange, and strangely unproblematized, wider regional
delineations such as Euro-American and Amerindian.13 The latter appears, in
Tylorian ways, to delineate civilizational ways of being: delineations that mostly
seem to exist inside the ontographers worldview, yet which are articulated as
empirical entities in their own right. This is vividly portrayed in Viveiros de
Castros notion of the Amerindian (a term which leaves us uncertain about the
aspect of ontological self-determination that is proclaimed as central to his
work), used to refer to both a people and a way of thought. And it is just as
clear in the ever-present Euro-American background, which seems to provide the
contra-identicatory ontological bedrock from where alterity is gured within the
ontological turn.14 The notion of the Euro-American appears to be essential for
the ontological turn as it frames the ontographers object of study by providing the
background against which ontology and alterity can be dened.
Ob-iacere
Interestingly, the noun object stems from Latin ob, meaning against, and iacere,
meaning thrown. The noun, in other words, contains a verb directing our atten-
tion to how dierence is produced and dierentiated. In relation to the ontological
turn, otherness can, in this respect, be seen as constructed by being thrown against
a background of predened Euro-Americanness. This means that the object of
research is dened not just by what it is but by being mirrored against, or
refracted through, an implicit idea of what it is alter to (Laidlaw, 2012;
Heywood and Laidlaw, 2013). The problem is that the non-reexivity of the onto-
logical turn prevents it from seeking awareness of the eyes through which it sees.
This is not meant to belittle the call for letting other peoples concepts and ideas
destabilize and further anthropological theory, but merely to state that the things
investigated by the turn are not just what they are but stand forth in relation to an
(unproblematized) pre-given background. Rather than analysing ontologies, via a
conventional eidetic analysis, where one imaginatively translocates being in order to
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Vigh and Sausdal 67
shed light on its boundaries, the proponents of the ontological turn implicitly
highlight dierence by framing it in relation to a Euro-American background.
As a result, the goal of approaching things with an idea that they are what they
are, immanently rather than contingently, clouds not just the dominance and
resistance encompassed in dening what is but equally silences its specic
coming-into-being as empirical material, leading us, once again, back to a
pre-reexive empiricism that constantly seems to lurk in the shadows that the
theory casts.
As said, the very point of departure in things being what they are appears to
obscure the struggle and disparities in dening what is. As Herzfeld put it, those
deceptively short words be and exist cannot be separated from questions of
power and control (1998: 74). In a similar vein, Carrithers points at how an epis-
temological analytical approach to anthropology (criticized by the ontographers)
does not necessarily have to reignite the post-modern representation debate and
all its possible disciplinary uncertainty. Rather, the anthropological/epistemo-
logical perspective comprises a useful point of departure for the study of lived
life, as it gives humans an epistemological liberation from totalitarianism
(Carrithers in Venkatesan, 2010: 159). In short, an epistemological focus entails
multiple human horizons of possibility via an insistence on exactly the opposite of
the ontological turn shared heterogeneity.
Putting it dierently, in lived life both inside and outside of anthropology
keeping the world epistemological and semantically exible, and not ontologically
dened or closed, is of vital importance in so far as it allows people emancipatory
possibilities and therapeutic mobility (Carrithers in Venkatesan, 2010: 159). As
Levi-Strauss (1987) has argued, semantic exibility, and thus the potentiality for
change, is not to be found in the inelastic ontologically signied but in the sign
itself. It is, we propose, precisely the signs semantic exibility that makes an inter-
active meeting between anthropologists and informants possible. In this way, part
of the dynamism of the humanistic, epistemological concept of culture can be
found in it ability to encompass both dierences and similarities. We are basically
all creators of culture, all thoughtful human beings, but our ways of being so can,
of course, be remarkably dierent. To share the cultural that is Culture means
sharing an ability, if not an urge or need, to fathom social life as it unfolds around
us. Culture is, in this understanding of the term, une saisie du monde (cf. Ulrich,
2002) a grasp (both as a practical grip and as an conceptual understanding) that is
unfolded and refolded into the world, not as demarcated entity but as intensity.
What should be clear by now is that we see shared being as central to lived life.
Essentialism and Othering are common features of social life, related to the
politicization of dierence, yet even in such situations people are often able to
engage with dierence as a matter of degree, not essence. They recognize the
other as a potential self and the self as a potential other, meaning that dierent
worlds essentialized, ontologized, or made incommensurable are haunted by a
sense of mutuality. It is, as Sartre states, when viewing the other that we become
aware that we ourselves may constitute the centre of other peoples views. This
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68 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
Closure
Though we recognize and admire the disciplinary ambitions and aspirations of the
ontological turn, this article has raised a number of critical questions in regards to
the turns theoretical points of departure, methodological possibilities and analyt-
ical consequences. We have, over the course of the article, strived to illuminate the
ontological turn in a way that does it justice, by staying loyal to its own analytical
modus operandi, taking its statements at face value and looking at the eects it
produces rather than the intentions behind it. The article, nonetheless, falls short of
encompassing the nuance of the work that can be labelled under its banner. This
may be indicative of the awed nature of the premises that dene the turn. It is not,
in any event, the product of any ill-will, but of two primary reasons. First of all, it
becomes clear, when reading through the work that aligns itself with the theory,
that its theoretical points of departure and analytical guidelines stand as trajec-
tories that are not fully travelled by its creators or followers, making it dicult to
describe their analytical merit and potential. Second, proponents of the theory
seem to nuance their theoretical positions in ways that, at times, contradict their
initial positions and perspectives what Heywood and Laidlaw have termed the
ontological u-turn (2013) making it dicult to encompass the (at times contra-
dictory) complexity of the turn within the scope of an article.
Despite having voiced a number of concerns of a more philosophical nature, it
should be clear by now that our discomfort with the ontological turn is primarily
related to the theorys essentialist bend and slide into a radically post-human study
of groups and peoples. While we may appreciate the common anthropological aim
to learn from alterity, we are weary of the way that social reality is reduced to
ontology be it in the shape of people, groups, ideas, concept-objects or things
within the turn, and of the specic version of post-humanism that this reduction
helps promote. We do not think that the merit of anthropology lies in translating
ethnography into arcane philosophy, but in crafting accounts that are able to
describe, make sense of, and educe themes from a world that is multiple, entangled,
yet shared. The constant installation of radical, as a distancing mechanism
between various perspectives and beings, leaves us uncertain about the analytical
applicability and consequences of the ontological standpoint.
By re-articulating many of the traditional strengths of anthropology, the onto-
logical turn carries with it many well-worn yet wonderful insights. However, its
insistence on radicalizing the same standard anthropological perspectives seems to
foundationally distort them in negative ways. As we have aimed to show, an
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Vigh and Sausdal 69
Notes
1. For the few critical voices see Turner (2009), a critique of de Castros perspectivism,
ontological essentialism and multi-naturalism; Lloyd (2011); Keane (2012); Laidlaw
(2012); Heywood and Laidlaw (2013); Sausdal and Vigh (2013).
2. It may be argued that the very coming into being of anthropology, and the concomitant
broadening of the scale of what it means to be human, constitutes the point of departure
for philosophical post-humanism. The emergence of anthropology as a discipline entailed
a broadening of the idea of humanity to include more than an enlightenment idea of the
rational agent.
3. See Terence Turners elaborate critique of de Castros perspectivism (2009) or Carla
Stangs wonderful monograph on the Mehinaku (2011).
4. Moving from a specific shamanism to broad-spectrum anthropology, and thereby, iron-
ically, from the particular to the general.
5. If anthropology is guilty of conceptualizing the field in predefined variables, and so is a
possible target for Latours critique, it is, interestingly, through the exact variables that
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70 Anthropological Theory 14(1)
figure so prominently within the ontological turn. The standard approach of much
anthropology is to automatically inscribe the empirical into variables such as exotic,
magic, shamanistic, ritual, and alterity, etc. This need not be a problem but calls for a
level of reflexivity that does not seem present within the turn.
6. The nexus of empirical data is to be found, in Jacksons view, in the encounter, and
not in isolated things themselves. For Jackson the world emerges inter-subjectively,
drawing our focus toward mutual becoming, variability and relationality rather than
ontology (Jackson, 1998: 7).
7. With their focus on materiality and things, the proponents of the ontological turn
strive to enter the others world through object-concepts. Yet how exactly such entities
function as connectors or portals, in a manner that may allow us to analytically travel
through them, remains unclear. Ontologically, we end up with the same problem of
translation; an incommensurability which appears to logically negate connection and
comparison. It leaves us with the proverbial apples and pears, and comparing via other
object-concept appears only to install what must be another ontology into the picture.
8. The turns relation to reflexivity is somewhat unclear or opportunistic. In an instance of
what Heywood and Laidlaw (2013) have called the ontological u-turn, it is argued that
the turn is characterized by heightened levels of reflexivity (Pedersen, 2012), yet the
general argument is one of moving away from reflexivity toward a clearer focus on
things as they are.
9. Verbal communication, M. Carey, May 2013.
10. Virtuality is inherently speculative. Even if we embrace the concept, any coming
into being necessarily dissolves the virtual as it entails a move into potentiality or
actuality.
11. Such contentions are, obviously, not approachable through the articulated but found in
silences, invisibilizations, practice and habitus.
12. The post-humanist ontological turn and its essentialism comes to resemble politico-
philosophical ideas about the clash of civilizations (Huntington, 1993, 1996) a simi-
larity which is also noticeable in Latours post-human contribution to peace and conflict
studies in War of the Worlds: What about Peace? (2002).
13. A quick search reveals that the concept of Euro-American is tremendously popular
among most of the authors who have embraced the ontological turn. The inspiration
seems to stem from Strathern.
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