We have always been animists …

• Main Author: Harvey, Graham
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Fordham University Press 2023
• Subjects: anishina*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9781531503055.003.0006

New approaches to animism have generated significant and vibrant debate in the last twenty years or so in both scholarly and popular venues and publications. Frequently citing the work of Irving Hallowell and what he learnt from Anishinaabeg hosts, this “new” (approach to) animism contrasts with that of Edward Tylor who used the term to define religion as a “primitive” and mistaken “belief in spirits”. What is new is not the animism(s) but the respectful (careful and constructive) scholarly engagement. Indigenous knowledges have influenced this and related conversations. In this article, Bruno Latour’s assertion that “we have never been Modern” is taken as an invitation to question further what we have been. One contrast among others between Moderns and animists is signalled by the term “Nature” which can suggest a realm from which humans are separate except as extractivists or observers. Animist ways of belonging to and becoming within the larger-than-human community invite reflections on responsiveness and responsibilities or immediacy and obligations among co-evolving kin.