Meditations on Anthropology without an Object: Boulder Hopping in Streams of Consciousness

This essay uses the contested histories of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness to explore the emerging interdisciplinary field of anthropology of consciousness. Ethnographic vignettes from anthropologists and their students highlight a paradox in anthropology's secularism, inviting readers to engage directly with the practices of consciousness described. Drawing on Stephan Schwartz's metaphor of "boulders in the stream," these practices and the modes of consciousness they invoke become obstacles or stepping stones that readers must navigate, moving from secularist anthropology through cyborg anthropology toward an anthropology of consciousness itself.

Study at a glance

Abstract

These meditations, which begin with Stephan Schwartz and Mark Schroll's contested and contesting histories of the lineage and founding of the Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness (below), contribute to the imagining of what Bethe Hagens calls "the relatively new interdisciplinary field of anthropology of consciousness.” Ethnographic vignettes from fieldwork of anthropologists, as well as fieldwork of students studying that fieldwork, highlight the paradox of anthropology's secularism and invite the reader, through the reading and writing of the text itself, to participate in the practices of consciousness described. Using Schwartz's metaphor of "boulders in the stream,” these practices, and the modes of consciousness they invoke, serve as boulders that readers must swim around, or hop from, secularist anthropology through cyborg anthropology to an anthropology of consciousness itself.