Perig Pitrou, “Life As a Process of Making in the Mixe Highlands (Oaxaca, Mexico): Towards a “General Pragmatics” of Life,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 21 (2014): 86-105.
Notes
- 86 – “In contrast to Western philosophy, which has considered the distinction between life and the living to be fundamental, anthropology seems not have given much thought to the difference between the two. However, the existence of an entity called ‘The One Who Makes Live’ among the Mixe, an Amerindian group living in the state of Oaxaca in Mexico, proves that ethno-theories of non-Western peoples often make the distinction between the characteristics and vital processes of living beings (growth, degeneration, reproduction, etc.), on the one hand, and the more or less personified causes that produce them, on the other. Given these circumstances, this article pursues a two-fold objective. First, based on the results of ethnographic inquiry, it tries to describe the categories of nonhuman agents with which the Mixe understand this production or making of the living. Second, it suggests that, in parallel with numerous approaches developed by anthropologists pasts and present, the anthropology of life would benefit from an approach based on a ‘general pragmatics’ in order to better understand the diversity of conceptions of life.”
- 87 – “And so, just as WEstern philosophy ha for centuries distinguished between life and the living, here too it is instructive to examine the gap that the causative introduces between the existence of living beings and the idea that an entity is capable of making them exist as they are.”
- “What is the agency of ‘The One Who Makes Live’? Does he use the same actions or sequences of actions to produce vitality in all living beings? Or is there rather a specialization of actions depending on which beings he is exerting his influence over (animals, vegetables, humans, etc.), or which of the various processes he is seeking to encourage (growth, reproduction, scarring, interaction with the environment)? Finally, how do the Mixe go about enlisting this entity so as to control processes they know they cannot fully carry out by themselves?”
- “In trying to answer these questions, which depend on a specific ethnographic context, I would like at the same time to formulate several methodological proposals for studying ethno-theories of vital processes on the basis of what I call a ‘general pragmatics’. As far as causality goes, I am not referring to a single material causality, but rather to the fact that living beings can be thought of as the results of a combination of actions by various agents who use various forms of agency in carrying out intentional as well as a material processes.”
- “The causality I am referring to may thus refer either to a demiurge or to a more internal causality at work among living beings (‘[A]ll living things are agents with respect to themselves in that their growth and form may be attributed to their own agency’ — Gell)”
- “The pragmatic approach I defend here is thus ‘general’ in that it seeks to analyse ethno-theories of life on the basis of a global system of actions and agents.”
