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Imagining Together: The Social Dimension of Imagination

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In Tandem – Pathways towards a Postcolonial Anthropology | Im Tandem – Wege zu einer postkolonialen Ethnologie

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Abstract

Imagination is a fundamental part of human agency. It is performed from day to day. Without imagining what we aim at, without imagining a possible future, we would not act at all. However, imagination is not always practiced in the same way. To some degree, it is performed habitually, but there is always an element of the unfamiliar in it because we cannot fully predict the future – even if we know from experience what is possible and what is not.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For societies in general, see Castoriadis 1987, for nation states, see Anderson 1991, for anthropology as imaginative practice, see Bloch 2016; Koukouti und Malafouris 2020.

  2. 2.

    Crossley 1996, p. 4, translating Husserl’s “Zwischenwelt” into English.

  3. 3.

    A notable exception is McLean and Coleman 2007. Kearney (1988, 1998) provides overviews from a transdisciplinary perspective.

  4. 4.

    See Dikovitskaya 2005; Mirzoeff 2014; Sturken und Cartwright 2001.

  5. 5.

    Literally “science of images”, often translated as “image studies”.

  6. 6.

    Mitchell posited that “imagination […] create[s] much of our world out of the dialogue between verbal and pictorial representations” (Mitchell 1986, p. 46). But this dialogue was situated at the level of meaning and representation while the sensory experience only underpinned it.

  7. 7.

    See Mary Douglas’ work on dirt perceived as “things in the wrong place” (Douglas 1966).

  8. 8.

    A few examples: on “tradition” see Hobsbawm und Ranger 1983; on “the nation” Anderson 1991; on “community” Hayden 2007; on “the state” Migdal 2001.

  9. 9.

    The data presented in the following paragraphs is based on field research conducted for my PhD dissertation in the 1970s and 1980s among the Senufo in Côte d’Ivoire (Förster 1985).

  10. 10.

    E.g. Ndembu divination: “The diviner’s insight is retrospective, […] he discloses what has happened, and does not foretell future events” (Turner 1975, p. 209, more precisely Zeitlyn 2012).

  11. 11.

    Such mainstream explanations of divination reproduce Evans-Pritchard’s classic argument (Evans-Pritchard 1937): All human practice is rational, only the basis of knowledge is different.

  12. 12.

    See Alfred Schütz two basic life-worldly idealisations of “and so on and so forth” and “I can do it again” (Schütz 1967, pp. 76 f., 135–138).

  13. 13.

    The relationship between diviner and client is well covered in Jackson’s work on the Kuranko (Jackson 1978).

  14. 14.

    Fieldwork was conducted among the Senufo in Northern Côte d’Ivoire between 1979 and 1985 (Förster 1985). Similar divinatory techniques are widespread in Africa, see Eglash 1997; Fortes 1966; Grillo 1992; Mendonsa 1982; Paulme 1937; Suthers 1987; Zeitlyn 2012; for overviews see Peek 1991; van Beek und Peek 2013.

  15. 15.

    Diviners can be male or female. Women may become diviners because they inherit this position and occupation from a deceased relative. Men cannot succeed diviners in their lineages; they become diviners only after having gone through an existential crisis, e.g. a serious illness or a mental affliction (Turner 1968).

  16. 16.

    Female diviners usually have rattles, while male diviners may play bridge-harps in addition to the rattles.

  17. 17.

    A comprehensive account of Senufo divination séances is published in Förster 1985.

  18. 18.

    See also the film on divination among the Tswapong directed by Richard Werbner (2005).

  19. 19.

    When this meaning reproduces a conventional worldview, it may link the social world back to the habitual practices that the actors are familiar with.

  20. 20.

    On kondoro’s history until 1996 see Förster 1997, p. 515–526.

  21. 21.

    Fieldwork was conducted between 1991 and 1996 in Northern Côte d’Ivoire, in particular on the erection of a kondoro shrine in Nafoun in December 1992 and January 1993.

  22. 22.

    Overviews from an anthropological perspective by Hannerz 2003; Baba 2013. Albrow (1996) argues that this change produces a new quality of the social at large. Giddens (1990) and others believe that it radicalises modernity only.

  23. 23.

    Young men of these social strata often have a good education but lack the social capital that they would need to get access to an appropriate employment in their home country.

  24. 24.

    Psalm 23. On the image of greener pastures in Africa see Adepoju und van der Wiel 2010; Poeze 2010.

  25. 25.

    It is often very much the beginning of a much broader social drama, as Turner would have said (Turner 1975; cf. de Boeck and Devisch 1994).

  26. 26.

    Csordas relates intersubjectivity directly to intercorporeality (Csordas 2008, also 1993).

  27. 27.

    This example shows that the theoretical views of Gilbert (1990), Alonso (2009) and Roth (2004) are not exclusive: obligation and public commitment can work together.

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  1. Ethnologisches Seminar, Universität Basel, Basel, Schweiz

    Till Förster

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  1. Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Mirjam Lücking

  2. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, München, Deutschland

    Anna Meiser

  3. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Freiburg, Deutschland

    Ingo Rohrer

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Förster, T. (2023). Imagining Together: The Social Dimension of Imagination. In: Lücking, M., Meiser, A., Rohrer, I. (eds) In Tandem – Pathways towards a Postcolonial Anthropology | Im Tandem – Wege zu einer postkolonialen Ethnologie . Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-38673-3_13

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