In his lecture, “Anthropology and Ontology,” Descola discussed the various mechanisms through which ontologies are used, and how things (people, animals, objects) are distributed within the world. The lecture provided structuralist ways of understanding the various ways people understand the non-human other in non-naturalist terms (naturalism, roughly boiled down to the assumption that nature exists and contains all truths, though feel free to correct me on this one).
Feeling rather confused at the time, I approached a professor of mine who rather gleefully provided the following diagram. The diagram represents how one’s body and interiority (religiosity, spirituality, etc) are positioned in relation to a non-human. Totemism, for an example, explores how certain entities (like a human and an animal) share characteristics. That a totemic animal can be used as a form of identity expression, “The qualities of a raccoon are the same within me, we are linked.” Animism, on the other hand, is the view that there is a continuity of souls (say, between a human and an animal), yet a discontinuity of bodies. One can break this bodily discontinuity by adorning oneself with the body of the animal (e.g.) or other types of clothing. Analogism represents the discontinuity among both the body and interiority of the relationship, so one must be created, or as Descola describes, “terms that are joined myst be initially distinguished.” Naturalism is the concept that we are all continuous as bodies-in-the-world (we are all made up of the same particles), yet there exists neither an internal nor a “supernatural” connection.
While this diagram leaves out many shiny bits from the lecture, it does provide quite a handy and simple Descola toolkit for befuddled students. It’s also easier to file away in the noggin. Anyone else present at the lecture should feel free to chime in!
