Essential Texts in Social and Cultural Anthropology – Vol. 2 Posthuman Anthropology

In this second volume of essential texts, we leave postmodern/postcolonial theory for new theoretical perspectives. Postmodern theory had the ambition to leave the modern behind but stopped short with an epistemological crisis. Postmodern theory however introduced innovative perspectives in theory that should be retained, such as positionality in research, deterritorialization, the ethnography of imagination, and the rhizomatic.

Posthuman theory builds on a different set of theories, that developed inside and outside of anthropology, most importantly science and technology studies, and philosophical strands including transmodern and transhuman orientations. The term ‘posthuman’ may be misleading as it does not involve the end of the human, but rather the end of the modern human, and the incorporation of the human in a larger perspective and context, making room for nonhuman beings such as animals and technology.

While the introduction of disability was limited in volume 1, it takes on a greater amplitude in this volume. People with disabilities’ experiences are familiar with the way the modern Vitruvian men is bypassed and in engaging with technology and with animals and other nonhuman beings. Rethinking (and re-doing) disability appears to be productive at both a discursive and narrative level, and provides an openings to relating with environments, by pushing for inclusion (in which not only other humans, but also other living and non-living things taking up significant time and space, and thus decenter modern humans). This leads to an ontological turn and a new humanization, somewhere between hope and staying with the trouble, with much attention for the materiality of the body and its prosthetics in future worlds. In four parts, the reader moves from tensions between disability, posthuman, and anthropology. A pragmatic theoretical approach is developed in part 3 with a focus on theory and new materialism, living, moving, and making, and resumes in part 4 with an attention to posthuman words in ‘care’, ‘(re)wilding’, ‘neurodiversity’ and ‘repair’.

Patrick J. Devlieger is a sociocultural anthropologist who was trained at KU Leuven and the University of Illinois. He worked extensively within the anthropology of disability and for the last decade in the history of leprosy sites and settlements. He has researched and taught in participatory fieldwork labs in Belgium, DR Congo, Canada, China, South Africa and New Zealand.