Rethinking Relations and Animism

Personhood and Materiality

Bibliographic Data

ID7098032
AuthorsFabio Gygi (0000-0001-9328-4281, corresponding author), Miguel Angel Astor-Aguilera (corresponding author)
EditorsMiguel Astor-Aguilera, Graham Harvey (0000-0003-1917-533X)
Year2018
Pages198
Publication date2018-10-09
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueRethinking Relations and Animism (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9780203709887
OpenAlexW2896756108
Open LibraryOL53959331M
ISBN9780203709887
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited74

Contemporary Japan is often described in utopian terms as a place where humans and nonhumans live and work together in harmony. This acceptance of nonhuman others is explained by some anthropologists as stemming from an “animist unconscious” (Allison 2006) that allows people to attribute “life” to robots and other artefacts, a notion that is explicitly linked to the “Shinto universe” of “native animist beliefs” (Robertson 2010). Contrary to the darker tone of robot fantasies in the EuroAmerican tradition, this “techno-animism” turns technological objects into non-alienating allies, or so the narrative goes. This chapter critically examines the ideological underpinnings of these claims. Instead of attributing “modern techno-animism” to a native and naïve ontology, the author argues that all forms of animism are “techno-animism” because they are based on a technology of animation. In turn, this technology of animation is based on what Bird-David (1999) understands as “relatedness”, but which the author hesitates to call a “relational ontology” because what enables animation is often a relation that emerges from an unexpected and surprising encounter. Drawing on the work of Japanese roboticists and anthropologists of technology, this chapter proffers the heuristic device of an “animation continuum” to better apprehend the broad range of relations that result in animation

Animism · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Theatre and Performance Studies · Animisme · Body, Mind & Spirit · Christianity · Cultural · Culture matérielle · Ethnic & Tribal · Gaia & Earth Energies · Material culture · Material culture (discipline) · Religion · Social Science · Theology

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