Góry Ałtaju nie mają duchów. Etnografia poza człowiekiem

Agnieszka Halemba

doi:10.23858/EP66.2022.3128

Published: 2022-12-21

Vol. 66 (2022)

There Are No Spirits of Altai. Ethnography Beyond the Human

Agnieszka Halemba

Etnografia Polska

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.23858/EP66.2022.3128

Abstract

In this article, I seek to revisit the results of the research I conducted in Altai between 1994 and 2008. I consider whether posthumanist approaches can provide a new direction of analysis that better reflects my ethnographic experience, the centre of which was the Altai, perceived by its inhabitants as a constitutive, fundamental or nodal entity. I am inspired by the ontological turn, understood purely as a methodological proposal. Departing from the descriptive notion of the ‘spirit of the mountains’, which is basic in the existing literature on the subject, I attempt to put into words the nexus of relations that emerged in the course of my research as ‘Altai’. In this paper, I offer a second look at a notion that had already disturbed me when I was conducting my research, but from which, without the influence of posthumanist approaches, I could not move away.

Keywords:

posthumanism, ontological turn, Altai, agency, animism, mountain spirit

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Halemba, A. (2022). There Are No Spirits of Altai. Ethnography Beyond the Human. Etnografia Polska, 66, 11–26. https://doi.org/10.23858/EP66.2022.3128

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