This article was downloaded by: [Pablo Wright]On: 14 July 2014, At: 13:02Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Culture and Religion: An Interdisciplinary JournalPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcar20

Postmodern ontology, anthropology, and religionPablo G. Wright aa University of Buenos Aires , ArgentinaPublished online: 30 May 2008.

To cite this article: Pablo G. Wright (2000) Postmodern ontology, anthropology, and religion, Culture and Religion: AnInterdisciplinary Journal, 1:1, 85-94, DOI: 10.1080/01438300008567141

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01438300008567141

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Article

Postmodern Ontology,Anthropology, and ReligionPablo G. WrightUniversity of Buenos Aires, Argentina

This article analyses some changes produced in the contemporary'postmodern' self and its consequences for the anthropological study ofreligion. In this regard, these changes influence deeply the way wewesterners represent our ontological structure, and approach other religioussystems and ontologies, due to the current processes of globalisation andtransnationalisation, the notion of Self often fluctuates between an oldstable, autonomous, maximiser (condensed) self and a dispersed,multivocal one. It is argued here that traditional anthropological analysesof religion lack this critical and reflexive awareness. For that reason,cultural phenomena such as shamanism, sorcery, and many forms ofreligious and cosmological syncretisms, are frequently approached from adistant, naturalistic viewpoint In this paper a more existential view ofreligion is proposed; it approaches the observer to the observed, openingup his/her assumptions about the 'order of things'. A collection ofnotions, such as critical hermeneutics, critical intersubjectivity, dialectics,and ontological language is discussed, to build a fresh inquiry into therealms of numinous life.

KEYWORDS: shamanism, postmodernity, self, religion, anthropology,ontology

Late ontology

The late twentieth century shows a series of socio-cultural and economictransformations that shift our cognitive and epistemological categories awayfrom the ontology inherited from the Enlightenment. Here I suggest that we arewitnessing the emergence of a new (cultural) type of subject, that is displacingthe old Cartesian ego. This paper analyses the consequences of this change vis-a-vis the anthropological study of religion, and the constitution of its key researchtool: the subject-ethnographer.

If we define postmodernism in Jameson's sense (1984), as a culturalphenomenon within the current stage of capitalism, postmodern ontology can beviewed as a Western 'regional ontology' that is gradually transforming the entire

85

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Article

world through mass media, information technology, and the processes ofglobalisation and transnationalisation.1 It exhibits a tendency to think of theindividual as an open, ambiguous, dynamic entity, which means that there isless confidence in the autonomous, modern individual. Postmodern ontology ischaracterised by an open subject, re-installed in the world, that contrasts with themodern self, an entity essentially separated from it. In this regard, the modernindividual turned to be 'the ultimate hermeneutic authority' (Gutman 1988:101)incorporated within him/herself the power of authority, decision, adventure, andjudgment. However, these 'faculties' implied, as Marshall Berman warned(1982), a perpetual danger of crisis, of internal rupture. For the open subject thatprocess of concentration of faculties is reversing; they are being dispersed intothe inter-subjective sphere. It questions individual authority, and redefines thelinks that connect subjects.

Contemporary macro context of capitalist 'flexible accumulation' (Harvey1990), where this fluid subject appears can be related to the cultural realmthrough a sort of Weberian 'elective affinity*. This flexible system ofcommodity production shapes 'flexible bodies' (Martin 1994) and categories,immersed in corporate lives. The images and experiences of the self are usuallydefined nowadays in terms of networks, linkages, and interactions functioning asrenewed metaphors to portray our being-in-the-world.

It is suggested that postmodern ontology emphasises a relational way ofthinking. This mode, deeply rooted in the paradigmatic changes introduced byphysics and neurosciences in the Western Weltanschauung, appears in socialsciences as a stress in concepts such as communication, interaction, dialogue,intersubjectivity, fusion of horizons, emergence, transpersonal, reciprocity,negotiation, polyphony. They are bridge-type concepts, that allow a fresh, moredynamic apprehension of the phenomena and processes arisen in socialinteraction. In this regard, as Sampson notes (1989:2), ontological primacy isgranted to relations rather than individual entities. In anthropology, GregoryBateson's work was one of the earliest examples of this mode, of reasoning.Recently, the late Victor Turner acknowledged this conceptual motion 'from astress on concepts such as structure, equilibrium, function, system to process,indeterminacy, reflexivity—from a "being" to a "becoming" vocabulary'(1985:152; emphasis added).

This emphasis in 'becoming' introduces temporality, context, andcontingency as chief factors of current ontology. I argue that for anthropology,there is a shift from the autonomous individual of Malinowskian ethnography,to an open, reflexive subject whose nature implies a redefinition of the fieldsituation, and the anthropological knowledge. Fieldwork presupposes currently a'contract of knowledge' that needs to be interactive, reflexive, and politicallyinformed. An interactionist epistemology could create a space for a trulydialectical exercise of interpretation between the individuals involved in fieldinteraction. Because the field is immersed in the world, anthropology implies aparticular praxis in the world. That praxis is based upon an experiencing

86

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Wright: Postmodern Ontology, Anthropology, and Religion

subject—the ethnographer—whose own existence, transformed through a certaintype of displacement, becomes receptacle, chain, and producer of knowledge.Here, I define the anthropological undertaking (in our times of flexibleaccumulation, make-believe media, but also magic realism, geopoliticalconsciousness, and non-traditional spaces of resistance), as an ontologicaldisplacement.

It means that the subject-ethnographer displaces his/her being-in-the-world toa different place, or to a known place but with a different (epistemological)agenda. It implies not an exotic travel to re-encounter a lost self, but a journeythrough the self to recover the world.2 As Fabian (1983) has shown,anthropology was defined traditionally in terms of spatial displacement to meetthe Other. Instead, I perceive it as a radical kind of existential movement,directed to meet another subject/s, involving the whole person. Moreover, theethnographer's being could be regarded as a Heideggerian 'field' instead of aclosed individual; a 'region of Being' without clear limits; a sort ofelectromagnetic field without a centre or an animic substance (cf. Barret 1958).

Any 'anthropological' study presupposes a certain kind of ontologicaldisplacement In the case of religion, it seems to affect more intensely thesubject-ethnographer's ontology. I believe that this is so because in most cases,belief systems, rituals, mythologies, and symbols challenge the researcher's ownconceptual framework—a product of the history of Western confrontations with'other' societies. Concepts such as magic and superstition are clear examples ofthe historical opaqueness of Western worldview. In developing a dialecticalepistemology, 'we have to let things, and especially people and their behavior"appear" to us provoking new rules of perception' (Schölte 1981:176). Thus, itwill be possible to imagine a different (enriched) way of being in the world.

Field-world

An example from my fieldwork among the Argentine Toba3 may illustrate thesereflections. During a 1983 field research in the Toba community La Primavera(Formosa province), I experienced a series of situations that questioned my'autonomous', 'closed', Western worldview. They were related mainly toontology, language, and the nature of truth. In this regard, I had no previousexperience other than the reading of Jorge Luis Borges's El Etnógrafo (TheEthnographer') (1971), that addresses some of the existential dilemmas everyethnographer may face.4

In La Primavera, I met a fifty-five year old shaman named Alejandro Katache.For the first time, I could talk about shamanism with a specialist who seemedfriendly in talking to a doqshil'ek (White, Non-Indian). As I introduced myself tohim, showing interest in his knowledge as a pi'ioGonaq (shaman), he rapidlycommented that my visit was the first ever to his home made by a doqshil'ek.He appreciated that, and overtly told me that he had many auxiliary spirits;3 also,that his main companion, nioGonaq ('the whistler', a nocturnal non-human

87

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Article

being), was a little scared by my missionary-look (beard plus blue eyes). Thereason was that nioGonaq didn't like any person related to Jesus, whom heperceived as a powerful competitor to his own power.6 While I denied thatidentity—not without the idiosyncratic uneasiness that such misidentificationprovokes on us—I reiterated my interest in learning from them. Then Alejandronotified me that the 'whistler' wanted to grant me some of his haloik (shamanicpower). Alejandro laughed a lot at my reply: no thanks, I am grateful, but I'mnot prepared to have such power, it scares me! (while replying that, I felt anoverwhelming sense of embarrassment, weakness, and stupidity). One morning,with a rare expression in his face, Alejandro asked me if I had slept well. A littleintrigued, I assented. When I asked Alejandro why he made such an inquiry, hementioned that the night before 'someone' had stolen two oxen from the corral.He confessed that he had suspected of me, but when seeing my secure response,he went on talking about the consequences of our dialogues. Thereon Alejandromanifested that surely he was punished by the pajaakpi (a generic term for non-human beings), because we had talked too much about shamanic issues. That isforbidden because words have power, one can't talk just for the sake ofknowledge; words carry meaning and power, more so if they are directly relatedto shamans. The more one say words about the non-human realm, the closer thisrealm and its inhabitants approaches one. Alejandro's interpretation shocked me.I could never have expected that Neither Saussure's nor Chomsky's lucubrationsadvised us that language might have any non-arbitrary relationship with the(non-human) world (of power). Perhaps Jakobson was in the right track, as wellas Hymes and Paul Friedrich's contextual approaches to language.7 Toba ideas oflanguage were overlooked by my rigid quest for data, which, ironically, wasconducted using verbal interviews!

The way Alejandro and myself faced these field events illustrates howanthropology explores certain types of phenomena that presumably confront theWestern epistemological bedrock. Malinowskian ethnographers were trained toface these phenomena distantly, detached from their own experiences and theirinterviewees'. To 'observe' and 'participate* in actual religious practices was anambivalent play performed by ethnographers—closed, self-contained unitssegregated from the world. Their texts showed such distance through precisewriting devices (see Marcus & Cushman 1982).

The open subject's ontology implies an aperture to the world, stressing therealm of intersubjectivity as constitutive of the social. There are no autonomousindividuals; conceptually, they are no longer viable; if they were, the socialwould be impossible. Humans are intersubjective animals whose residence is thesocial realm, which is endlessly produced by communication.

Returning to the Toba example, if I had a different epistemological approach,displacing my Malinowskian being within my collaborators' intersubjectivecommunity, my perceptions and understanding of that situations might havechanged radically. I assumed that language was disconnected from the world, orconnected in abstract terms. Of course, I was not able to receive power from a

88

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Wright: Postmodern Ontology, Anthropology, and Religion

non-human entity: my Western scientific background denied both instances. Iwas outside the Toba's Wittgensteinian language games, and that was my fault.Furthermore, I did not even recognise that this language could have ontologicalconsequences at all.

Unification

Approaching religious phenomena such as shamanism' from a perspective of anopen subject, less in charge of his/her links with the world, yields to theemergence of new rules of perception, through field interactions.9 It means a lessdualistic separation between the Being, on the one hand, and the World andLanguage, on the other. This kind of 'existential reconciliation' (Schölte 1980),supposes the inclusion of the researcher and the collaborators' social worlds,within a wider field of life experiences.

Key terms of postmodern ontology are experience, performance, and praxis,which enable us to assess differently the Toba episode. The point is that an opensubject would be more sensitive to the complexities of language, the boundariesbetween the numinous and the mundane, and the role of personal experience inthe anthropological endeavour. If we agree that, anthropologically, knowledge isbased upon an ontological displacement, the intersubjective bond establishedbetween ethnographers and interviewees may be depicted as a 'fusion' between'fields of beings', where language acquires a constitutive dimension. Language isthe verbal medium, the external mark of a multi-layered communicative eventReality is composed of sounds, gestures, gazes, silences integrated withinexistential Gestalten that ethnographers must appraise, experimenting on theirown ontologies.10 If we can understand such complexity, then, we might be ableto hear differently nioGonaq's offer, appreciate Alejandro's uneasiness, and judgemy ethnographic bad timing and powerlcssncss. Understanding is a dialecticalfact that, in our case, produces a sort of inter-shamanism, where researcher,shaman, and auxiliary spirits are truly speakers, within a concrete time-spacelocation. Shamanism, among many other religious manifestations, as Turnerproposed (1982:86), 'lives in so far as it is performed ... it is meaningfulexperience and experienced meaning.' Thus, the anthropological study of religionmust reframe its assumptions about ontology and cosmology to unlock itsanalytical eyes (and body). This will give place to unified, inter-experiencedaccounts of certain events, for instance, shamanic healing rituals, or lengthytalks about cosmology, that are essentially public for our field fellows (cf.Laughlin 1989; Laughlin, McManus & d'Aquili 1990). Here 'public' means thatthey are intersubjective, not private activities. They need a basic communicativeconsensus—in my case given by the Toba community—that we ethnographershave to recognise and incorporate. Ultimately, if ethnograpers are regarded asopen subjects, we will be more susceptible to apprehend the contingent fluxes ofsocial reality. Within it, religion in the postmodern era, appears as a proteanmanifestation, a vital niche of social praxis, that can be approached by

89

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Article

displacing ourselves through a world from which we are no longer disengagedcomponents.

Notes

Some ideas of this article were discussed in preliminary form in a paperpresented to the IV Latin American Congress of Religion and Ethnicity,National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH-INAH), Mexico City,June 1992, and in the article 'Experiencia, Intersubjetividad y Existencia.Hacia una teoría-práctica de la etnografía' (Wright 1994). Field research wasfunded by the Argentine National Council for Scientific Research (CONICET)and The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. I amgrateful also for the financial support provided by the AnthropologyDepartment and the Graduate School of Temple University. I deeply thankAlejandro Katache for his patience to resist my inquiries. I am indebted toRita Segato, Ezequiel Ruiz, Tom Patterson, Peter Rigby, KyriakosKontopulos, Dan Rose, and Elmer Miller for their intellectualencouragement. I also thanks George Marcus for his bibliographic assistance.Finally, I am grateful to Jorge Wright and Inés Fernández del Casal for theirlinguistic collaboration.

1. They do not deny the existence of socio-economic, cultural discontinuitiesworld wide. On the contrary, in some way globalisation generatesregional/local tensions that create conditions for the emergence of ethnic,nationalist, racist movements. Recent events in Chiapas, Eastern Europe,Chechenia, Peru-Ecuador recent war, and the Mexican financial crisis indicatethat current interconnectedness does not guarantee automatically peace,democracy, and human rights. Interesting discussions on these topics forLatin America, mostly focused in the modern-postmodern debate, can befound in a CLACSO published seminar entitled Imagenes Desconocidas. Lamodernidad, en la encrucijada postmodema (1988), published in English inBoundary 2, vol 20:3 (1993). Other interesting discussions about identity,temporality, and cultural studies of current Latin America, can be found inHill (1988), García Canclini (1990), Rowe & Schelling (1993), volumesedited by León-Portilla et al. and Gutiérrez Estevez et al. (1992), RosasMantecón (1993), Sarlo (1993, 1994).

2. There seems to be an increasing interest in what can be called an ontology ofdisplacement. Many aspects of current 'global' culture are related to theexperience of displacement (see for example Rushdie 1985).

3. Self-denominated qom ('we', 'the people'), linguistically they are aGuaykuruan group. Until late nineteenth century, they were hunting-gathering nomadic bands that migrated seasonally throughout the Chacoregion (NE Argentina, central-south Paraguay, SE Bolivia). With theoccupation of their territories by White colonizers since the 1880-1890s, the

90

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Wright: Postmodern Ontology, Anthropology, and Religion

Toba were violently forced to settle and work in sugar cane and lumber mills.Currently, they practise agriculture, sell their work for wages, living mostlyin sedentary settlements in the Argentine Chaco rural and periurban towns.Many Toba have migrated since the middle fifties to Resistencia, Rosario,and Buenos Aires. Their total population can be estimated as 30,000individuals.

4. I must add that by that time (1983), I had not yet read Carlos Castaneda'scontroversial work, mainly The Teachings of Don Juan (1968), that refers tomany archetypal field situations experienced by students of shamanism.

5. For an account of Toba shamanism, see Miller (1979), and Wright (1992).6. As Alejandro explained, nioGonaq thought that I was a biblical character

similar to those detected in Alejandro's biblical charts. Since the mid thirties,Protestant missions introduced 'new' religious figures among the Toba (cf.Miller 1979). In this regard, illustrated biblical charts circulated throughoutthe region (c.f. Wright 1988), showing Western-type individuals, that theToba identified generically as doqshi. I interpret nioGonaq's non-humandiscourse as an ideological rejection, rooted deeply in five hundred years ofcolonial domination. Usually the discourse of Toba 'believers in the Gospel'denigrate ancient culture; their forefathers are seen as ignorant, pagan, andsometimes influenced by the devil. For that reason, nioGonaq's allegationsurprised me a lot. There are many examples of the effects of colonial andneo-colonial 'mode of producing reality' (Hill 1986:112) on native religions(e.g. Taussig 1980, 1987; Fabian 1974). An extended account of this episodewas published in Wright (1996).

7. See for example Jakobson (1978), Dell Hymes (1974), and Paul Friedrich(1986).

8. Shamanism must be regarded both as an ideology and a ritual praxis.Anthropological studies of shamanism, as Langdon suggests (1989), onlyrecently understood it 'as an important dynamic force in today's world,' thatincludes not only indigenous but urban populations as well. A good exampleof urban 'neo-shamanisms' and popular culture in Colombia, is illustrated byRamírez de Jara & Pinzón Castaño (1992).

9. Jean Favret-Saada's explorations in sorcery in rural France (1980) and PaulStoller's experiences as an apprentice of Songhay sorcerers in Niger (c.f.Stoller & Olkes 1987), are excellent examples of the ambiguities weexperience when we start being part of our interviewees* intersubjectivenetwork. Rita Segato's suggestive work (1988), questioning the positivistbias of anthropological studies of religion, introduces fresh ideas to dealanthropologically with religious experiences.

10. In this regard, I was very influenced by Michael Jackson's existentialanthropology, Paths toward a clearing (1989).

91

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Article

ReferencesBarret, William. 1958. Irrational Man. A Study on Existential Philosophy. New

York: Anchor Books.Berman, Marshall. 1982. All that is solid melts into air. The experience of

modernity. New York: Simon and Schuster.Beverlye, John and José Oviedo (eds.). 1993. The Postmodernism Debate in Latin

America. Durham: Duke University Press. [Special issue of Boundary 2 20 (3) Fall1993].

Borges, Jorge Luis. 1971. 'El etnógrafo', in Otras Inquisiciones. Buenos Aires:Emecé.

Castaneda, Carlos. 1968. The Teachings of Don Juan. A Yaqui way of knowledge.Berkeley: University of California Press.

Calderón, Fernando (Comp.). 1988. Imágenes Desconocidas. La modernidad en laencrucijada postmoderna. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, December.

Fabian, Johannes. 1974. 'Genres in an Emerging Tradition: An AnthropologicalApproach to Religious Communication', in A.W. Eister (ed.) ChangingPerspectives in the Scientific Study of Religion. New York: John Wiley and Sons,pp.249-272.

. 1983. Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York:Columbia University Press.

Favret-Saada, Jeanne. 1980. Deadly Words. Witchcraft in the Bocage. Cambridge:Cambridge University. Press [French edition 1977].

Friedrich, Paul. 1986. The language parallax: linguistic relativism and poeticindeterminacy. Austin: University of Texas Press.

García Canclini, Néstor. 1990. Culturas Híbridas. Estrategias para entrar y salir de lamodernidad. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana.

Gutiérrez Estévez, Manuel et al. (eds.). 1992. De la Palabra y Obra en el Nuevo Mundo2. Encuentros interétnicos. México: Siglo XXI.

Gutman, Huck. 1988. 'Rousseau's Confessions: A Technology of the Self', in LutherH. Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick Hutton (eds.) Technologies of the Self. A.Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts. Press,pp.99-120

Hill, Jonathan. 1986. 'Community, Region, and cosmos: Levels of Analysis inAmazonian Anthropology', Latin American Research Review 21 (2):246-255

. (ed.). 1988 Rethinking History and Myth. Indigenous South AmericanPerspectives on the Past. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press

Hymes, Dell. 1974. Foundations of Sociolinguistics. An ethnographic approach.Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press

Jackson, Michael. 1989. Paths toward a Clearing. Radical Empiricism andEthnographic Inquiry. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press

Jakobson, Roman. 1978. Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning. Cambridge, Mass.:MIT Press

Jameson, Fredric. 1984. 'Postmodernism, or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism',New Left Review. 146:53-92

Langdon, E. Jean. 1989. 'Shamanism as the History of Anthropology', in M. Hoppáland O.J. von. Sadovszky (eds.) Shamanism: Past and Present. Budapest and Los.Angeles/Fullerton: ISTOR Books, pp.53-68.

Laughlin, Charles. 1989. 'Transpersonal Anthropology: Some MethodologicalIssues', Western Canadian. Anthropologist 5:29-60.

. John McManus, and Eugene d'Aquili. 1990. Brain, Symbol & Experience.Toward a Neurophenomenology of Human. Consciousness. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press.

92

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Wright: Postmodern Ontology, Anthropology, and Religion

León Portilla, Miguel et al. (eds.). 1992. De la Palabra y Obra en el Nuevo Mundo. I.Imágenes Interétnicas. México. Siglo XXI.

Marcus, George and Dick Cushman. 1982. 'Ethnographies as texts', Annual Reviewof Anthropology 2:25-69.

Martin, Emily. 1994. Flexible Bodies: Tracking Immunity in America from Days ofPolio to the Age of Aids. Boston: Beacon Press.

Miller, Elmer S. 1979 Los Tobas argentinos. Armonía y Disonancia en una sociedad.México: Siglo. XXI.

Ramírez de Jara, M.C. and C.E. Pinzón Castaño. 1992. 'Sibundoy Shamanism andPopular Culture in Colombia', in E. Jean Matteson. Langdon and Gerhard Baer(eds.) Portals of Power. Shamanism in South. America. Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, pp.287-303.

Rosas Mantecón, Ana. 1993. 'Globalización cultural y antropología', Alteridades[Mexico] 3 (5):79-91.

Rowe, William and Vivian Schelling. 1993. Memoria y Modernidad. Cultura popularen América Latina. Mexico: Grijalbo. [English edition 1991].

Rushdie, Salman. 1985. 'The location of Brazil', American Film 10:5-53.Sampson, Edward E 1989. 'The Deconstruction of the Self, in John Shotter and

Kenneth J. Gergen. (eds.) Texts of Identity. London: SAGE, pp.1-19.Sarlo, Beatriz. 1993. 'Modernidad y después: la cultura en situación de hegemonía

massmediática', Alteridades [Mexico] 3 (5):51-58.. 1994. Escenas de la vida posmoderna. Intelectuales, arte y videocultura en la.

Argentina. Buenos Aires: Ariel.Scholte, Bob. 1980. 'Anthropological Traditions: Their Definition', in Stanley

Diamond (ed.). Anthropology: Ancestors and Heirs. The Hague: Mouton, pp.53-87.

. 1981. 'Critical Anthropology Since Its Reinvention', in Joel Kahn andJoseph. Llobera (eds.) The Anthropology of Pre-Capitalist Societies. London:Macmillan, pp. 148-184.

Segato, Rita. 1988. 'Una Paradoja del Relativismo: El Discurso Racional de laAntropología', frente a lo Sagrado. 46th International Congress of Americanists.University of Amsterdam (Holland).

Stoller, Paul and Cheryl Olkes. 1987. In Sorcery's Shadow. A Memoir ofApprenticeship Among The Songhay of Niger. Chicago and London: TheUniversity of Chicago Press.

Taussig, Michael. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America.Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press

. 1987. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man. Chicago: University ofChicago Press

Turner, Victor W. 1982. From Ritual to Theatre. The Seriousness of Human Play. NewYork: Performing Arts Journal Press.

. 1985. On the Edge of the Bush. Anthropology as Experience. Tucon, Arizona:University of Arizona Press.

Wright, Pablo G. 1988. 'Tradición y aculturación en una organización socio-religiosa Toba contemporánea', Cristianismo y Sociedad [México] 95: 71-87.

. 1992. 'Dream, Shamanism, and Power among the Toba of Formosa', in E. JeanMatteson Langdon and Gerhard Baer (eds.) Portals of Power. Shamanism in South.America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, pp.149-172.

. 1994. Experiencia, Intersubjetividad y Existencia. Hacia una teoría, -prácticade la etnografía. Runa. Archivo para las ciencias del Hombre. [Buenos Aires]21:347-380.

. 1996. 'Crónicas de un encuentro shamánico: Alejandro, el Silbador y elAntropólogo', in Isabel Lagarriga, Jacques Galinier, and Michel Perrin (Coord.),

93

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014

Article

Chamanismo en Latinoamérica. Una revisión conceptual. México: Plaza y Valdes,pp.167-186.

. 1997. 'Being-in-the-dream. Postcolonial explorations in Toba ontology',PhD dissertation, Temple University.

94

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Pabl

o W

righ

t] a

t 13:

02 1

4 Ju

ly 2

014