Paper short abstract:

What connects the many and variegated ways in which people talk about attention? This paper poses one possible answer to this question, and, in doing so, examines how paying attention to attention in diverse ethnographic contexts can provide a richer theoretical account of agency.

Paper long abstract:

Attention is notoriously difficult to define despite William James’ often-quoted assertion that everyone knows what it is. This paper examines the profusion of different metaphors and terms for attention that circulate within northern India and the UK, as well as within different theoretical schools in anthropology. It considers what links these usages - which at first glance seem too disparate to be connected - to arrive at a heuristic framework for understanding attention in terms of volition and selectivity. The framework points to the usefulness of attention as an ethnographic and theoretical tool for re-conceptualising longstanding debates in anthropology about agency, as well as contributing towards recent attempts to develop more robust accounts of will and volition. The usefulness of paying attention to attention in diverse ethnographic contexts to arrive at a richer understanding of agency is explored through examples from fieldwork, including the cultivation of intense states of absorption by Indian classical musicians in Banaras, and the experience of chronic distraction by students in London. In each case, the particular ways that attention is cultivated, talked about and experienced shed light on different emic models of agency which do not easily fit within existing theoretical frameworks in anthropology.