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Onto-Methodology

by Tony Crook
This article is part of the series The Politics of Ontology
Because we can only know in relation to something else, this discussion
of the Politics of Ontology gets to the heart of the anthropological
project. Ontology provides a relational view of method. Every
ethnographic description is equally a description of the anthropology
producing it.
Anthropologys engagements with the political have !een turned inside
out over recent years. Any distinction or de"nition !etween te#tual
representation and political representation has !een collapsed.
$peaking about can now !e heard as speaking for. As much as what an
ethnographic te#t or description might say, even the act of ethnographic
description itself can make a political statement. But this roundta!le is
important for it provides an opportunity to separate out again these
twinned politics of representation. And it also provides a space therefore,
in which to leave aside the question of whether a discussion of
anthropological method should !e political or non%political.
&y !ook, Exchanging Skin '())*+, derives from research in Bolivip
village in Papua ,ew -uinea. .he !ook takes up the &in Pro!lem/a
long%standing analytical impasse/and argues that the pro!lem all along
was one of Anthropologys own making. 0ntriguingly, the very peoples
and places that, through 1redrik Barths work on the Baktaman, came to
stand for and e#emplify secrecy and knowledge, have provided the
discipline with one of its most critically demanding tests. Although
analyses !ased on Euro%American conceptuali2ations of secrecy and
knowledge were produced, they did not stack up with the ethnography in
Bolivip.
0n Bolivip, 3knowledge4 implicates people in a dou!le life !y a5ording
and !ringing together divergent gendered perspectives6 not so much
revealing to a viewer their position in the composition of a "eld of
knowledge, as newly revealing the composition of the knower and the
su!tleties of their personal capacities and relational supports. .his is not
so much !eing in the world 'a "guring out of positions+ as world in the
!eing 'a "guring of internal capacities+. 7evelations have the dual life
e5ect of revealing that there is always more to things than one knows/
and so it creates a relation that carefully positions a person in those new
possi!ilities.
8nowledge practices in Bolivip employ the imagery of relative positions
on a tree6 the muddled confusion of junior cultists is likened to the
multiplicity of !ranches and leaves, whilst very senior cultists display
their solidifying grasp of things in the way that the ever%!ranching
stories of juniors seem always to come down to the same thing. .here is
a dou!le%ontology in Bolivip6 for juniors in the crown, words from seniors
at the !ase appear to !ranch into multiple possi!ilities.
9learly, ontology is no one thing. As weve already heard, 3ontology4 can
serve to descri!e an all%encompassing world view, and to descri!e an all%
encompassing anthropological method. .hat 3ontology4 foregrounds and
highlights this isomorphism !etween ethnographic o!ject and
anthropological method is its most important virtue.
Of course, anthropologists are adept at discerning the wider cultural
histories and metaphysical concerns at work in world views, and thus it
is possi!le to discern contemporary Euro%American conceptual collapses
of nature and culture such that things seem to have 3micro%ontologies4
'so every thing has a world, and a worldview, of its own+, and to discern
emergent 9hristian and process theologies which refashion the position
and the mathematics of the -odhead 'so that -od and his !elievers are
part of, and can pass through, each other+.
Ontology provides a relational view of method, and reminds us that a
critical test for ethnographic knowledge%practices is the faithfulness with
which they acknowledge that they are !oth ena!led and constrained !y
the knowledge practices of our ethnographic su!jects. 1or too long, the
pretense of scrupulously separating data from theory had anthropology
!arking up the wrong tree, and a5orded a privileged analytical position
as if narrating from outside the ethnographic relation. 0 take it that
looking for theory in the same place we look for data provides a crucial
disciplinary and decoloni2ing turn.
Every ethnographic description is equally a description of the
anthropology producing it, then. Ontology is useful !ecause it
foregrounds our part in the relational and conceptual scheme, and
reminds us of three important lessons6
':+ 7oy ;agners ':<=:+ enduring insight a!out our invention of culture
/that is, the e>cacy and contingency of using our concepts 'such as
3culture4 or 3ontology4+ to apprehend, apportion to and descri!e the
concerns of our ethnographic su!jects.
'(+ &arilyn $tratherns '()::, <(+ insights into e#changes !etween
knowledge practices/that is, 3to !e perspectivalist acts out Euro%
American pluralism, ontologically grounded in one world and many
viewpoints? perspectivism implies an ontology of many worlds and one
capacity to take a viewpoint.4
'@+ As 0 understand Aiveiros de 9astros '())B, @+ 3comparison !etween
anthropologies,4 it is neither multiple natures nor singular cultures that
require analysis, !ut a description of the metaphysics, potentials and
a5ordances that "nd manifestation and e#pression in di5erent forms.
Any methodological insistence on these three lessons carries political
force for the reproduction and transformation of the disciple. 0t may even
save us from !eing da22led and taken in !y the e5ects of our own
creativity, and allow the creativity of ethnographic su!jects to further
e#pand our understandings of !eing human.
References
9rook, .ony. ())*. Anthropological Knowledge, Secrecy and Bolivip,
Papua New Guinea: Exchanging Skin. O#ford6 British AcademyCO#ford
Dniversity Press.
$trathern, &arilyn. ()::. 3Binary Eicense.4 o!!on Knowledge :*, no.
:6 =*F:)@.
Aiveiros de 9astro, Eduardo. ())B. 3Perspectival Anthropology and the
Method of Controlled Equivocation.4 "ipit#: $ournal o% the Society %or the
Anthropology o% &owland South A!erica (, no. :6 @F((.
;agner, 7oy. :<=:. "he 'nvention o% ulture. 9hicago6 Dniversity of
9hicago Press. Originally pu!lished in :<*G.

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