Sociocultural Anthropology in 2016: In Dark Times: Hauntologies and Other Ghosts of Production

Abstract

This essay reflects on sociocultural anthropological scholarship in 2016. The review does not create categories or rubrics—as some reviewers have done in the past. Rather, it narrativizes emergent issues and offers a number of ways of considering how a range of analytics have predetermined our anthropological practice. I survey “dark” anthropology through the ontological turn this year and conclude by amplifying the research and call to decolonize and engage our methodologies. Through this review, I revisit particular conceptions of structure and agency, especially in the context of neoliberal capitalism, and consider how that has forced us to rethink the classic tension between culture and materiality. The year 2016 was marked by a certain specter of death at the interstices of life, crisis, and a burgeoning urgency and sense of reflection on the various kinds of reifications the production of anthropological knowledge manifests. As such, the year saw important pleas, correctives, and reengagements of anthropological discourse and thematic production. The operative framework for this review deploys an anthropological hauntology, a modality through which to make sense of the specters of our discursive being. This raises questions about ethnographic research in relation to its modes of production. [sociocultural anthropology, ontology, death, decolonizing methodology, disenchantment, crisis]

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