Unfinished: The Anthropology of Becoming

415 Pages·2017·44.51 MB·English

by  João Biehl and Peter Locke (eds.)

Unfinished
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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
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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