For an anthropology of destiny

Bibliographic Data

ID2226235
AuthorsAlice Elliot (Goldsmiths University of London, corresponding author), Laura Menin (University of Milano-Bicocca)
Year2018
Volume8
Issue1-2
Pages292-299
Publication date2018-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHau Journal of Ethnographic Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2049-1115 • E-ISSN: 2575-1433
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/698223
OpenAlexW2809555710
LanguageEN
Citations received26
References cited34

This preface develops an argument for a comparative anthropology that takes the concept of destiny as a fertile laboratory for anthropological thought. The articles in this collection show how destiny's distinguishing heuristic feature may be what we call "malleable fixity": a paradoxical juxtaposition of images of temporal and historical fixity with a practical reckoning and open-ended self-reorientation. Exploring the radically different ways in which destiny is evoked, enacted, and (re)theorized locally, we argue that an anthropology of destiny is, at its heart, the comparative study of diverse temporal orderings of human-as well as divine and cosmic-action

Action (physics · Argument (complex analysis · Biology · Destiny (ISS module · Epistemology · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · History · Philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies