Panel

Animism in Southeast Asia: persistence, transformation and renewal
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Conveners: Prof. Kaj Arhem, University of Gothenburg; Prof. Guido Sprenger, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster

The present panel takes its point of departure in the recent theoretical reformulation in anthropology of the old and largely residual notion of animism, recasting it as a distinctive type of relational epistemology and/or intersubjective (interagentive) ontology (Bird-David, Descola, Ingold, Viveiros de Castro). Much of this recent theoretical work on animism draw on contemporary ethnographies from the Americas (Århem, Descola, Viveiros de Castro), and Eurasia/Siberia (Pedersen, Willerslev; but see also Howell on Southeast Asia). This panel aspires to: (1) revisit Southeast Asian varieties of animism in the light of these general theoretical advances and (2) broaden the empirical basis for theoretical and comparative generalisations on animism by calling attention to the rich and varied religious ethnography of Southeast Asia. Contributions which focus on historical as well as contemporary forms and expressions of animism are welcomed, including studies of how animistic beliefs and practices articulate with and are reshaped by contemporary political and economic realities, world religions, new environmental sensibilities and other forces shaping contemporary Southeast Asian societies.

Contact address: kaj.arhem@globalstudies.gu.se

References
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Bird-David, N., 1999, Animism revisited: personhood, environment, and relational epistemology, Current Anthropology, Vol 40 (Supplement):67-91.

Descola, P., 2009, Human nature, Social Anthropology Vol 17, Issue 2:145-57.

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Howell, S., 1996, Nature in culture or culture in nature? Chewong ideas of humans and other species, in P. Descola & G. Palsson (eds), Nature and Society, Routledge.

Ingold, T., 2000, The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge.

Pedersen, M. A., 2001, Totemism, animism and North Asian Indigenous ontologies, JRAI 7 (3): 411-27.

Viveiros de Castro, E., 1998, Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism, JRAI 4:469-88.

Willerslev, R., 2007, Soul Hunters: Hunting, Animism, and Personhood among the Siberian Yakaghirs, Univ. of California Press.