168. Gellnerovský seminář

Česká asociace pro sociální antropologii a Česká sociologická společnost
ve spolupráci s Institutem sociologických studií Fakulty sociálních věd UK
Vás srdečně zvou na

168. GELLNEROVSKÝ SEMINÁŘ

který se bude konat

ve středu 11. dubna 2018 od 17:00 hod.
na Fakultě sociálních věd Univerzity Karlovy
Praha 1, Smetanovo nábřeží 6, místnost H012

Vystoupí

Dr Stefan Ecks

The University of Edinburgh, School of Social and Political Science, Department of Social Anthropology

Na téma

Habitography (and not ethnography)

Both humans and nonhumans have habits. Habits are located between interiority and exteriority, between affecting and being affected, between self and other. A habit can be a mental and bodily disposition; a physical appearance; a posture or demeanour; a way of dwelling and of being in the world. The notion that anthropologists study „habits“ is both very old and very new. Mauss, and later Bourdieu, established „habitus“ as a key object of inquiry, but in many ways they also deepened the hiddenness of habit. Over the past few years, habit has made a comeback in the humanities and social sciences, including political theory, feminist cultural theory, and the philosophy of action. Renewed interest in habit comes from rediscovering the writings of the nineteenth-century philosopher Ravaisson, who saw habit as both generated by change as well as a disposition toward future change. To date, however, anthropologists have had surprisingly little to say about habit. In this talk, I explore what difference habit could make to how we define anthropology, and propose that „habitography“ (rather than ethnography) opens up new possibilities for collecting, and making sense of, the evidence we collect. My examples are drawn from long-term fieldwork on psychiatric practices in India.

Stefan Ecks, MA, DEA, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology. He studied anthropology, sociology, and philosophy at Goettingen, the University of California at Berkeley, the School of Oriental & African Studies, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and graduated with a PhD from the London School of Economics. He has carried out ethnographic fieldwork on emerging forms of pharmaceutical uses, evidence-based medicine, and global corporate citizenship in India since 1999. He held visiting fellowships at the University of California at Berkeley, the Karl Jaspers Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies at Heidelberg, and the Brocher Foundation at Geneva. He serves as Associate Editor of Medical Anthropology Quarterly and is Board Member of Medical Anthropology and Anthropology & Medicine, as well as Area Editor for Anthropology, Archaeology, Health, and Ethics of Research for the International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd Edition.