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Discussion

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Discussion on 'Affect as Cultural Critique: Somatic Engagements with Enchantment, Creativity and Play'What if the most responsible reply to a problematization was not the formulation of an answer but the cultivation of an affect? What if understanding unfamiliar discourses required somatic rather than semiotic exercises? Finally, where speaking from habituated perspectives of anthropological professionalism prohibits experiencing possible worlds, what if anthropology as a discipline could leverage affect to differently connect with and cultivate collaboration with others? This panel investigates encounters in fieldwork in which typical theorizations, problematizations and other conceptual frameworks brought to the field are contested not only through discursive tactics but also affective practices of feeling and doing that disrupt the anthropologist in ways that invite critique of the discipline’s dominant analytics.