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Witnessing the Unseen Extinction, Spirits, and Anthropological Responsibility

Published version
Peer-reviewed

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Abstract

jats:titleAbstract</jats:title> jats:pThis article draws on two research projects – one on orangutan conservation, and the other on religious change among indigenous Bidayuh communities – to reflect on the relations, technologies and processes involved in producing witnesses and witness-able truths. I compare two forms of witnessing: visualizations of environmental crisis and orangutan extinction, and modes of encountering invisible entities among Bidayuhs. Both involve the challenge of making the unseen visible or apprehensible and thus addressable. But whereas the first entails a crisis-laden visual imaginary that turns witnessing into a form of human stewardship over the environment, the second involves a more relational encounter involving mutual adjustment and responsivity to obligations and commitments. I suggest that this latter mode of witnessing invites us to reimagine both the crisis logic of environmental visualizations and ideals and practices of anthropological witnessing.</jats:p>

Description

Keywords

anthropological witnessing, Borneo, extinction, orangutan conservation, spirits, visualizations, the unseen

Journal Title

Cambridge Journal of Anthropology

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0305-7674
2047-7716

Volume Title

39

Publisher

Berghahn Books
Sponsorship
European Research Council Starting Grant 758494