“Animism” Revisited
- 1 February 1999
- journal article
- review article
- Published by University of Chicago Press in Current Anthropology
- Vol. 40 (S1) , S67-S91
- https://doi.org/10.1086/200061
Abstract
"Animism" is projected in the literature as simple religion and a failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto been viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter-gatherer people is given to explore how animistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered.This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit:
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