On Radical Alterity

Amira Henare, Martin Holbraad, and Sari Wastell propose

a radical constructivism not dissimilar to that envisaged by Deleuze. . . . Discourse can have effects not because it ‘over-determines reality,’ but because no ontological distinction between ‘discourse’ and ‘reality’ pertains in the first place. In other words, concepts can bring about things because concepts and things just are one and the same.1

As David Graeber put it: “Apparently there’s virtually nothing, no matter how obviously crazy, a contemporary academic can’t get away with if they find some way to attribute it to Gilles Deleuze.”2

 

  1. “Introduction: Thinking through things.” In Thinking Through Things: Theorizing Artefacts Ethnographically, edited by Amira Henare, Martin Holbraad, and Sari Wastell, p. 13, London: Routledge. (2007)
  2. Radical alterity is just another way of saying “reality” A reply to Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5 (2):20-21 (n23). (2015)
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