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Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming PDF

415 Pages·2017·44.51 MB·English
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Unfinished This page intentionally left blank The Anthropology of Becoming joão biehl & peter locke | editors duke university press Durham & London 2017 © 2017 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Matthew Tauch Typeset in Arno Pro by Westchester Publishing Services Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Biehl, João Guilherme, editor. | Locke, Peter Andrew, [date]– e ditor. Title: Unfinished : the anthropology of becoming / João Biehl and Peter Locke, editors. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: lccn 2017024177 (print) | lccn 2017040725 (ebook) isbn 9780822372455 (ebook) isbn 9780822369301 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 9780822369455 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Ethnology— Philosophy. | Anthropology— Philosophy. | Critical theory. | Ethnosociology. Classification: lcc gn345 (ebook) | lcc gn345 .u545 2017 (print) | ddc 301.01— dc23 lc rec ord available at https:// lccn.loc . gov/ 2017024177 Duke University Press gratefully acknowledges the support of Prince ton University’s Committee on Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences, which provided funds toward the publication of this book. Cover art: Francis Alÿs, Reel- Unreel, 2011. In collaboration with Julien Devaux and Ajmal Maiwandi; video documentation of an action; film still. Contents foreword. Unfinished João Biehl and Peter Locke ix introduction  |  ethnographic sensorium João Biehl and Peter Locke 1 i one  |  the anthropology of becoming João Biehl and Peter Locke 41 ii two  |  becoming aggrieved Laurence Ralph 93 three  |  heaven Angela Garcia 111 iii four  |  rebellious matter Bridget Purcell 133 five  |  witness Naisargi N. Dave 151 iv six  |  i was cannibalized by an artist Lilia M. Schwarcz 173 seven  |  on negative becoming Lucas Bessire 197 v eight  |  time machines Elizabeth A. Davis 217 nine  |  horizoning Adriana Petryna 243 vi ten  |  meantime Peter Locke 269 eleven  |  hereafter João Biehl 278 afterword. Zen Exercises: Anthropological Discipline and Ethics Michael M. J. Fischer 293 acknowl edgments 317 bibliography 319 contributors 353 list of illustrations 357 index 359 plate 0.1 Alice Neel, James Hunter Black Draftee, 1965 This page intentionally left blank Foreword UNFINISHED joão biehl and peter locke Alice Neel’s 1965 oil painting James Hunter Black Draftee is an arresting por- trait. Hunter’s pensive face and supporting hand are richly filled in, while his ears and the rest of his body are only loosely sketched. The uncompleted image exposes how lifeworlds enter into the work of art: the artist had been inviting passersby on the New York City street into her studio to sit for her. Hunter, who said he had been drafted to fight in the war in Vietnam, never returned for a second sitting. We d on’t know what happened to Hunter.1 But we know who wanted war and what war did, and how old and new wars make plain the transience and value of all things. Outlined by Neel in the spur of the moment, the seem- ingly invisible body of this fleeting subject is now a power ful reminder of the perennial strugg le of minorities in the United States and elsewhere for full political recognition of their personhood. Hunter’s detailed, expressive face also evokes his singularity and the concerns that weigh on him, while reveal- ing little of who he is. Yet it is Hunter who punctuates the repre sen ta tion. So the painting seems unfinished, and this transfixing unfinishedness—t he worlds on edge and the open- endedness of people’s becoming—is the very stuff of art. With its receptiveness to and incorporation of the accidental and the un- known, Neel and Hunter’s artwork (not pos si ble without each other and the

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This original, field-changing collection explores the plasticity and unfinishedness of human subjects and lifeworlds, advancing the conceptual terrain of an anthropology of becoming. People's becomings trouble and exceed ways of knowing and acting, producing new possibilities for research, methodolo
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