Comparison in a World of Resemblances, Flows and Proximities

Anthropologists compare – it is at the heart of what we do as we try and make sense of, describe and explain human social being in all its diversity. But the use of comparison extends far beyond anthropology. Indeed, it seems ubiquitous across the board, even necessary, and richly generative in and for a meaningful social world. In that sense, comparison is a fitting theme for this conference and I am delighted to have the opportunity to systematically think it through here. I will do this by focusing on two concepts: freedom and decolonization. Both traverse academic, peri-academic and non-academic spaces and are transformed and transform as they move through or settle in these spaces. We can compare how they work or are mobilized in different spaces. I will track these and show how the two classic orientations of anthropological comparison – sameness and difference, tending at their limits towards identity and alterity– while productive, do not do justice to how these concepts play out on the ground. We need other terms that are much more attuned to resemblances, intensities, and flows. These are no less comparative, but perhaps less dramatic

Generative grammar · Social identity theory · Social justice · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture

• Phenomenology, by comparison

  Open Access•M Schnegg, Julian Sommerschuh•Phenomenology and the Cognitive…•2026

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