Paper short abstract:

This presentation will explore the notion of 'identification' as a mediation of technology when applied to the subject. Identification, in that context, is taken as being the capacity of people to adopt the characteristics of another person or a material object.

Paper long abstract:

Mauss defined technology as "traditional and efficacious action (on... whatever it may be)". He included magic and religion within the domaine of technology. This indicates that, in his view, technology could be applied both to material objects and to the subject, alias "homme total". In this scheme, however, I miss a more precise assessment of the mediations of such an "efficacy". One possible mediation (among presumably many other ones) may be found in the capacity of people to identify with material objects and substances. In my presentation, I wish to explore the notion and the mechanisms of identifications, with examples taken from the Cameroon Grassfields. I also wish to show that such identifications are shared by people belonging to many different polities and linguistic communities, thus sketching an unbounded, yet identifiable, 'civilisation'.