Paper short abstract:

This paper traces animism as exemplary model in environmental discourse. Focusing on the role of genres in the translation from “old” to “new” animism, I discuss how anthropological knowledge, through the notion of non-human actors, produce models for future sustainability based on the familiarity of a stable past.

Paper long abstract:

Facing the global environmental changes, several proposals have been made to change our perception of, and relationship to, our environment. Common among them is to find ways to bridge the nature/culture divide by bridging the so-called Cartesian gap between mind and body. In recent years, a reinterpretation of the old anthropological category of animism has been utilized for this purpose, drawing concepts from the debates around “new animism” in anthropology into fields as diverse as business research, educational science and sustainability science. However, while these models readily translate animistic practices as exemplary models for human relationships to the environment, the mind/body dichotomy which is at the heart of Tylor’s notion of animism, the mental projection of spirits on inanimate bodies and souls on human bodies, is sought overcome by reframing animism as a relation between human and non-human actors.

In this paper, I seek to trace the translation of the concept of animism within anthropology, from E.B. Tylor’s concept (1871), through Nurit Bird-David’s revisiting of animism (1999), and her use of Irving Hallowell’s study of the Ojibwa “personhood” category (1960). I will focus on the often-overlooked role of textual and oral genres in these translations from “old” to “new” animism. How is the, in Tylor’s view erroneous, notion of spirits, or indeed animation, translated into the agency of non-human beings in contemporary environmental discourse? And how does the everyday knowledge of animism blend with the anthropological knowledge to make models for a sustainable future?