Anthropology of/from reality
Anthropology chases reality and how it expands during everyday experiences and socialization. However, chasing reality does not produce anthropology of reality but it is produced through simultaneous observation of reality (of reality) and participation in the observed reality (from reality). An anthropology of reality deals with representations through ethnographic observations, and an anthropology from reality deals with authentications via ethnographic participation. Here, I distinguish between representations and authentications by limiting representation to how reality is described by social actors and I define authentication according to how any described reality is enacted/performed. Philosophically speaking, representation and authentication both belong to the realm of the essence, and they could be considered responses to existence (see the previous blog on distinctions between essence and existence). Chasing reality is behaving like an Ouroboros and acting like the serpent that eats its own tail. In other words, chasing reality via anthropology is the circular act of seeing, sensing, feeling, dreaming, and analyzing reality while reproducing it with all those actors who an anthropologist observes. This circular act emanates anthropological knowledge.
Anthropology of Reality
There is a fine line between anthropology of reality and anthropology from reality. Anthropology of reality traces how social actors represent reality. An anthropologist receives, notices, observes and analyzes those representations in order to make sense of reality of any given individual/collective/social actor/society. Anthropology of reality follows what anthropologists traditionally call emic perspectives, which means a researcher merely reflects what social actors assume, presume and convey during ethnographic encounters. Mattia Fumanti, during his fieldwork in Namibia, conducted anthropology of reality and described his experiences through Namibians’ invitation toward him to imagine along with them. Namibians presented their reality, and he writes:
‘to imagine in a word helped to makes sense of people’s experience and to locate myself in a world of meaningful relations beyond visible.’
Namibians describe reality to Fumanti. They shared their reality with Fumanti, including all emotions, linguistic expressions and experiences that their reality provokes. His anthropology is an anthropology of reality by highlighting the invitation to imagine is about stepping into how reality is represented. Fumanti theorizes his anthropology of reality via imagination because his collaborators and interlocutors repeatedly mentioned the verb imagine. Fumanti notices imagination coveys Namibians’ emic perspective, and therefore he follows how Namibians represent their reality through imagination. His work shows anthropology of reality is an act of mapping how people/social actors present the world and crafting theories based on that produces anthropological/ethnographic theories.
Anthropology from Reality
An anthropology from reality steps beyond representations. It follows how represented reality is authenticated through certain enactments, and it demands anthropologists to participate in those enactments to be able to give an account of authentication of represented reality. In other words, authentication is built mainly on how anthropologists take an etic perspective through participation. Anthropology from reality gives an ethnographic account of how various actors experience any given reality and how these experiences overlap, contradict, contest or confirm each other. In other words, anthropology from reality re-describes anthropology of reality by placing emic and etic perspectives beside each other.
Anthropology from reality moves beyond mapping social reality and pursues how reality becomes real, tangible, material and operatable. It asks what constitutes reality and attempts to open the Pandora box of this thing called reality. Anthropology from reality does not take any reality for granted but takes a political responsibility toward the knowledge-making process and critically evaluate reality. Chauvin, Coenders and Koren, mercilessly and rightly, criticize the Dutch defenders of Black Pete traditions by discussing insistencies of the emic perspectives and how lies after lies are made to justify Black Pete. Chauvin, Coenders and Koren historically situate the emic perspectives and follow the Dutch TV program to demonstrate the inconsistencies. They rightly don’t buy into the emic perspective and craft anthropology from reality that shows how some Dutch represented racially-biased reality by building a new narrative and denying racism. Chauvin, Coenders and Koren write:
‘This claim to innocence has foundered on remanent of empire-relic from the colonial past as well as the contemporary presence of ethnoracial others that keep tying Black Pete’s to this unsettling history.’
The images are taken from sales ads on marksplaats and other open source locations Their writing exemplifies anthropology from reality which researchers, analysts and theoreticians take political responsibility and critique the emic via etic. Their anthropology and their knowledge-making process are fromreality, not merely of reality. It explains how race and racial bias are authenticated in Dutch society and how the authentication-attempts further contestation of representations. Anthropology from reality proceeds from anthropology of reality; therefore, none of them stand alone, and none of them is complete without the other one. Theorizing anthropology requires intermingling both of them and thinking through the anthropology of/from reality.
Here, you can listen to my podcast series Hopeless World of Reality , the second episode discuses anthropology of/from reality in connection with writings of anthropological writings mentioned in the blog.