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P31


Anthropology of mind 
Convenor:
Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford University)
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Format:
Panel
Sessions:
Thursday 8 April, -
Time zone: America/Chicago

Long Abstract:

A number of people have begun to use the term “Anthropology of Mind” to describe work that focuses on culturally different representations of what English speakers call the mind—the domain of thought, feeling, imagination, the mental. The term captures emerging interests in theory of mind, in attention, in differences in subjectivity which have emerged through historical change, social contact, and religious engagement. The anthropology of mind raises fundamental questions. How is the quality of our present consciousness shaped by the way we have come to imagine thoughts, feelings, mind? Are minds always imagined in the first instance as private? When and where is thought considered to be a thing? How are these differences engaged in producing inequalities? To date there have been work focused on “opacity,” the idea that one person should not or cannot not draw inferences about another person’s intentions and ideas. There has also been work focused on “porosity,” the idea that thought can cross over a permeable mind/world boundary and act supernaturally in the world. Psychologists sometimes assume that these differences in representation are superficial in human experience; those anthropologists who work in this area believe that different conceptions of mind profoundly shape social life, in health and also in illness. The goal of this panel is to take stock of where the discussion is at the moment: what the important questions should be, what are the most interesting findings, and where should research and discussion go from here?

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Thursday 8 April, 2021, -