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Raíces – Revista Nicaragüense de Antropología

ISSN 2520-9736

1 paper in the library · publishing 2021

Papers

El lugar de la creencia (o no) del antropólogo en el campo

Raíces – Revista Nicaragüense de Antropología December 22, 2021 Rodrigo Iamarino Caravita

An anthropologist describes a dilemma faced while participating in shamanic ceremonies: how to give anthropological meaning to extraordinary experiences like the vision of death. Rather than answering colleagues who asked whether the vision was real, the author problematizes the question itself, avoiding the false opposition of the anthropologist's belief versus the native's belief. Drawing on phenomenology and the affective turn, the argument is that what matters is not whether one believes in the vision, but how it affected the participant and how that affect can be set in motion.