Karma Masters: The Ethical Wound, Hauntological Choreography, and Complex Personhood in Thailand
In contexts of severe illness in Northern Thailand, many conceive of themselves as combinations of beings assembled through the binding ethical force of karma. Scholars working in many world areas have built frameworks for understanding “complex” (distributed, partible, fluid, transient) personhood....
| Published in: | American Anthropologist |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | unknown |
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Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/163632 https://doi.org/10.1111/aman.13464 |
| Summary: | In contexts of severe illness in Northern Thailand, many conceive of themselves as combinations of beings assembled through the binding ethical force of karma. Scholars working in many world areas have built frameworks for understanding “complex” (distributed, partible, fluid, transient) personhood. In this article, I bring these frameworks into conversation with ethical theory to ask how one can make sense of ethical action when one is always already partly the other. For many in Northern Thailand, the answer is an ethical and hauntological choreography; rather than relying only on rational frameworks for right action or cultivating individual ethical dispositions, people seek to assemble optimal elements—other people, beings that have become components of themselves, material objects infused with ethical force—into scenes where the residual karmic “stickiness” of all can be unmade. This unmaking is achieved through a form of forgiveness and kindness that moves beyond individual agency. [personhood, ethics, ontology, haunting, Buddhism, Thailand]RESUMENEn contextos de enfermedades severas en el Norte de Tailandia, muchas se conciben así mismas como combinaciones de seres ensamblados a través de la fuerza ética unificadora del karma. Investigadores trabajando en muchas áreas del mundo han construido marcos para entender la compleja (distribuida, partible, fluida, transitoria) condición de persona. En este artículo, introduzco estos marcos en conversación con la teoría ética para preguntar cómo puede uno entender la acción ética cuando uno es siempre ya parcialmente el otro. Para muchos en el Norte de Tailandia, la respuesta es una coreografía hauntológica y ética; más que depender solamente de marcos racionales para la acción correcta o cultivar las disposiciones éticas individuales, las personas buscan ensamblar elementos óptimos –otras personas, seres que han llegado a ser componentes de sí mismos, objetos materiales infundidos con fuerza ética– en escenas donde la “pegajosidad” kármica residual de todos puede ... |
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