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ID:
164021
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| Summary/Abstract |
Taking an ethnographic point of departure in the relationship between two women in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan – a doctor and a clairvoyant – the article will focus on the ambiguous ways the visible and the invisible intersect in the lives of the Kyrgyz. Esoteric experiences such as ayan, dream omens, sometimes stand out as flashes of insight which bring clarity and guidance, but are equally often unwanted disturbances which haunt people against their will. In order to do justice to this ambiguity I engage the phenomenology of the alien as developed by Bernhard Waldenfels, arguing that esoteric experiences may be seen as an example of what he terms radical alienness which cast doubt on interpretation itself.
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| 2 |
ID:
164020
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| Summary/Abstract |
During the Egyptian uprising in 2011, a TV crew accidentally filmed a ghostly horseman in the midst of protesters. This essay takes the ghostly horseman as a starting point for thinking about the possibilities of an anthropology of al-ghayb, the invisible and unknown. Drawing on fieldwork in Egypt, as well as online reports and contestations of apparitions, visions, and dreams seen during the uprising, I suggest that accounts of the unseen pose a profound challenge to (and open up new possibilities for) doing ethnographic research, writing ethnography, and thinking anthropologically. Inspired by Michael Taussig, I suggest that the challenge is not to undo the invisible but to find a language that runs along the seam where the visible and the invisible connect and disconnect.
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| 3 |
ID:
106818
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| 4 |
ID:
084916
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