Synopses & Reviews
Anthropology as Cultural Critique helped redefine cultural anthropology in the 1980s. Now, with
Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice, pathbreaking scholar Michael M. J. Fischer moves the discussion to a consideration of the groundwork laid in the 1990s for engagements with the fast-changing worlds of technoscience, telemedia saturation, and the reconstruction of societies after massive trauma. Fischer argues that new methodologies and conceptual tools are necessitated by the fact that cultures of every kind are becoming more complex and differentiated at the same time that globalization and modernization are bringing them into exponentially increased interaction. Anthropology, Fischer explains, now operates in a series of third spaces well beyond the nineteenth- and twentieth-century dualisms of us/them, primitive/civilized, East/West, or North/South. He contends that more useful paradigmsandmdash;such as informatics, multidimensional scaling, autoimmunity, and visual literacy beyond the frameandmdash;derive from the contemporary sciences and media technologies.
A vigorous advocate of the anthropological voice and method, Fischer emphasizes the ethical dimension of cultural anthropology. Ethnography, he suggests, is uniquely situated to gather and convey observations fundamental to the creation of new social institutions for an evolving civil society. In Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice Fischer considers a dazzling array of subjectsandmdash;among them Iranian and Polish cinema, cyberspace, autobiographical and fictional narrative, and genomic biotechnologiesandmdash;and, in the process, demonstrates a cultural anthropology for a highly networked world. He lays the groundwork for a renewed and powerful twenty-first-century anthropology characterized by a continued insistence on empirical fieldwork, engagements with other disciplines, and dialogue with interlocutors around the globe.
Review
andldquo;True to its title, Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice is about worlds coming into being in technoculture. Attentive especially to the new biologies and biotechnologies, information technologies, and ecological and environmental matters, Michael M. J. Fischer explores what he calls andlsquo;ethical plateausandrsquo; or domains of ethical challenge. This wonderful book neither condemns nor glorifies emergent worlds; instead it gives us deep and intelligent analysis and reflection from a distinctive ethnographic point of view. andlsquo;Cultureandrsquo; comes alive here. As Fischer reminds us vividly, culture is not a variable. Culture is about relationships, about relating as a verb. Culture is a passage and a topos, and Fischer is a masterful guide.andrdquo;andmdash;Donna Haraway
Review
andldquo;Michael M. J. Fischerandrsquo;s andlsquo;anthropology outside the frameandrsquo; takes on an astounding range of contemporary subjects: Austrian politics, Polish and Iranian films, cyberspace, virtual surgery, xenotransplantation, the autobiographical construction of memory, the technoscientific representation of the social world, and the ethical complexities of fieldwork among tribal peoples. His extension of ethnography beyond its traditional concerns to the investigation of the emerging forms of human consciousness usually vaguely grouped as andlsquo;late-andrsquo; or andlsquo;postmodernandrsquo; sets out a broad new agenda for cultural description and political critique. An unstandard, adventurous, eye-opening work.andrdquo;andmdash;Clifford Geertz
Synopsis
Essays by a leading anthropologist on current dilemmas of theory, science, ethics, and cinema.
About the Author
“Michael M. J. Fischer’s ‘anthropology outside the frame’ takes on an astounding range of contemporary subjects: Austrian politics, Polish and Iranian films, cyberspace, virtual surgery, xenotransplantation, the autobiographical construction of memory, the technoscientific representation of the social world, and the ethical complexities of fieldwork among tribal peoples. His extension of ethnography beyond its traditional concerns to the investigation of the emerging forms of human consciousness usually vaguely grouped as ‘late-’ or ‘postmodern’ sets out a broad new agenda for cultural description and political critique. An unstandard, adventurous, eye-opening work.”—Clifford Geertz“True to its title, Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice is about worlds coming into being in technoculture. Attentive especially to the new biologies and biotechnologies, information technologies, and ecological and environmental matters, Michael M. J. Fischer explores what he calls ‘ethical plateaus’ or domains of ethical challenge. This wonderful book neither condemns nor glorifies emergent worlds; instead it gives us deep and intelligent analysis and reflection from a distinctive ethnographic point of view. ‘Culture’ comes alive here. As Fischer reminds us vividly, culture is not a variable. Culture is about relationships, about relating as a verb. Culture is a passage and a topos, and Fischer is a masterful guide.”—Donna Haraway
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue: The Third Spaces of Anthropology 1
Emergent Forms of Life
1 Deep Play and Social Responsibility in Vienna 29
2 Emergent Forms of Life: Anthropologies of Late or Post Modernities 37
Critique within Technoscientific Worlds
3 Filmic Judgment and Cultural Critique: Iranian Cinema in a Teletechnological World 61
4 Cultural Critique with a Hammer, Gouge, and Woodblock: Art and Medicine in the Age of Social Retraumatization 90
5 Ethnographic Critique and Technoscientific Narratives: The Old Mole, Ethical Plateaus, and the Governance of Emergent Biosocial Polities 145
Subjectivities in an Age of Global Connectivity
6 Autobiograhpical Voices (1,2,3) and Mosaic Memory: Ethnicity, Religion, Science (An Inquiry into the Nature of Autobiographical Genres and Their Uses in Extending Social Theory) 179
7 Post-Avant-Garde Tasks of Polish Film: Ethnographic Odklamane 225
New Pedagogies and Ethics
8 Worlding Cyperspace: Toward a Critical Ethnography in Space, Time, and Theory 261
9 Calling the Future(s): Delay Call Forwarding 305
I. Las Meninas and Robotic-Virtual Surgical systems: the Visual Thread/Fiber-Optic Carrier 309
II. Modules for a Science, Technology, and Society Curriculum: STS@theTurn_[ ]ooo.mit.edu 333
10 In the Science Zone: The Yanomami and the Fight for Representation 370
Epilogue: On Distinguishing Good and Evil in Emergent Forms of Life (Woodblock Print to Newspaper Illustration) 393
Notes 397
Bibliography 427
Index 463