Enabling Powers of Non-human Agencies
نویسندگان
چکیده
In a wide range of contemporary debates on Japanese cultures of technological practice, brief reference is often made to distinct Shinto legacies, as forming an animist substratum of indigenous spiritual beliefs and cosmological imaginations. Japan has been described as a land of Shinto-infused ‘techno-animism’: exhibiting a ‘polymorphous perversity’ that resolutely ignores boundaries between human, animal, spiritual and mechanical beings. In this article, we deploy instances of Japanese techno-animism as sites of theoretical experimentation on what Bruno Latour calls a symmetrical anthropology of nature-cultures. In staging a dialogue between actor-network theory and Japanese techno-animism, we show how Shinto cosmograms provide an enlivening and alternative diffraction device on several of the ontological motifs manifested in Latour’s work. In particular, by mobilizing the territory of a ‘new’ animism debate in anthropology – manifested in the work of Philippe Descola and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro – we attempt to infuse Latourian ‘multinaturalism’ with new, other-than-western analytical energy. Extending actornetwork theory, we argue, Shinto cosmograms offer an interesting vantage point for interpreting the immanent, affective, enchanting and enabling powers of nonhumans in contributing to collective life. By thus broadening the ‘cosmopolitical’ imagination beyond Latour’s own European-Catholic frame of reference, Shinto techno-animism offers up a wider reflection on contemporary entanglements of Corresponding author: Casper Bruun Jensen, IT University of Copenhagen, Rued Langgaardsvej 7, Copenhagen S, 2300, Denmark
منابع مشابه
The Status of Entrepreneurship Support Agencies (ESAs) in Lagos State, Nigeria
The purpose of this paper is to appraise theoretically and empirically the status of ESAs in Nigeria. Government agencies, organized private sector, industrial associations and international institutions constitute ESAs in Nigeria and have been in the forefront of MSMEs’ development, through enabling environment. The study used a qualitative multiple case study by purposively contacting 56 SME ...
متن کاملMunicipal solid waste collection and management strategies in Akure, South-Western Nigeria
Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) has become the greatest problem facing many urban and semi-urban areas in Nigeria, although to varying degrees. This study suggests the various steps and approaches to combat the menace in Akure in the southwest zone of Nigeria. Such approaches include creation of special agencies for the collection, recycling and conversion of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)...
متن کاملTop Management Perception towards Training: An Empirical Study of Travel Agencies in India
The need to develop the required human resources in the tourism industry has become imperative as a consequence of rapidly changing technology and dynamic changes in the international tourism market. And in this regard the role and commitment of the top management towards developing the human resources cannot be undermined. A study has been conducted to assess the perception of the top manageme...
متن کاملThe exercise of public health powers in cases of infectious disease: human rights implications. Enhorn v. Sweden.
Introduction While there has been considerable scrutiny by both domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) of issues of contested medical treatment, little judicial attention has addressed the exercise of public health powers. Indeed, the role of law in public health has been much neglected at both judicial and academic level. This is on one level surprising, given the vulner...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
دوره شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2013