Dominant anthropological theories of mind and consciousness treat certain ways of being as normal, marginalizing those with nonnormative subjectivities. Drawing on the anthropology of disability and psychological anthropology, the authors argue that attending to atypical communication and behavior should be the basis for studying personhood and subjectivity. Building on affect theory and disability studies, this approach opens up conceptions of personhood and refocuses on the process of attribution. The article articulates a 'psychotic anthropology' that centers atypical forms of consciousness to unsettle assumptions about mind and cognition.
This paper argues that the theories of minor science and literature developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari can provide a framework for an anthropology of science that takes alternative and marginalized sciences seriously. It examines three aspects: the political relationship of minor to dominant sciences, the role of science in the state, and how minor sciences reconfigure dominant sciences. Using the case study of 'quantum consciousness' research in the United States, the paper shows how this field proposes to replace dominant metaphysics in Western science and how its minority status is perpetuated by power structures tied to the state and knowledge production.