'An anthropological concept of the concept': Reversibility among the Siberian Yukaghirs

This article attempts to sketch a new anthropological epistemology. It does so by revisiting the work that concepts do in economic models, and by suggesting an alternative 'anthropological concept of the concept' for the economy. The article looks to how concepts create their own limits of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Main Authors: Corsin Jimenez, Alberto, Corsín Jiménez, Alberto, Willerslev, Rane
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/6f86a28d-181c-4815-96e7-948d716fc32f
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9655.2007.00441.x
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Summary:This article attempts to sketch a new anthropological epistemology. It does so by revisiting the work that concepts do in economic models, and by suggesting an alternative 'anthropological concept of the concept' for the economy. The article looks to how concepts create their own limits of meaning and uses the very idea of limit to rethink how conceptual thought out-grows and transforms itself. We develop our epistemology by looking at the socio-economic practices and institutions of the Yukaghirs, a small group of indigenous hunters, living along the Kolyma River in northeastern Siberia. The Yukaghirs' moment of creative possibilities is given through the reversibility of every one of their economic practices, informed by the work of a shadow force (ayibii) that aims for the limit. We gain insights from this notion of reversibility to rethink the purchase of the 'economic' in our contemporary world, questioning the validity of such 'conceptual' descriptions as virtualism or the knowledge economy. © Royal Anthropological Institute 2007.