The Pragmatics of the House.
Preliminary Remarks on Socio-spatial Categories, Intersections, Scales and Agencies.
Abstract
The term in Haitian Creole used to designate house, kay, possesses diverse empirical referents that extend beyond the ideal of the nuclear family home to encompass other geographic and temporal territories, involving proximities with both living humans and ancestors, designated by words such as lakou, paket kay, bitasyon or eritaj, among others. At the same time, the house also forms part of a wider universe of socio-spatial categories, operating at diverse scales, that are not primarily related or limited to family ties (though they may also contain these, as in the case of the category baz or ‘base’) and in relation to which individuals and collectives maintain ties of belonging and identification that are forever contextual, overlapping, intersecting or following a segmentary logic. In this paper I look to broaden the scope of the questions raised in this seminar, contemplating the extent and complexity of the relations of affect, belonging and familiarity involved in the management of shared life and collective or political action, though an analysis of the uses of the term house and the universe of socio-spatial categories related to it, specifically in the gueto of Port-au-Prince where I have been conducting ethnographic research over recent years.
Bio
Federico Neiburg is Professor in Social Anthropology at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is also lead research for the Brazilian National Research Council and the co-coordinator (with Fernando Rabossi) of the Center for Research in Culture and Economy (NuCEC, www.nucec.net). His publications in English include the volume co-edited with Lygia Sigaud and Benoit de l’Estoile, Empires, Nations, and Natives: Anthropology and State-Making (Duke UP), and articles in journals such as Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cultural Anthropology, Social Anthropology and Anthropological Theory. He is now preparing a collective book on the ethnography of the Haitian social space and co-editing (with Catherine Eagleton) the volume The Age of Empires, for the Cultural History of Money (edited by Bill Maurer, Bloomsbury). He will also publish in English the chapters “Involvement. Making Peace in the Guèto", in Didier Fassin (org.), If True be Told. The Politics of Public Ethnography (Duke), and "Imaginary Moneys in Haiti", in Keith Hart (org.) Money in the Making of a World Society (Bergham). He leads, with Benoit de l’Estoile, the international research program “Forms of government and daily economic practices”. http://ecogov.weebly.com/
[email protected]
[webpage]
The term in Haitian Creole used to designate house, kay, possesses diverse empirical referents that extend beyond the ideal of the nuclear family home to encompass other geographic and temporal territories, involving proximities with both living humans and ancestors, designated by words such as lakou, paket kay, bitasyon or eritaj, among others. At the same time, the house also forms part of a wider universe of socio-spatial categories, operating at diverse scales, that are not primarily related or limited to family ties (though they may also contain these, as in the case of the category baz or ‘base’) and in relation to which individuals and collectives maintain ties of belonging and identification that are forever contextual, overlapping, intersecting or following a segmentary logic. In this paper I look to broaden the scope of the questions raised in this seminar, contemplating the extent and complexity of the relations of affect, belonging and familiarity involved in the management of shared life and collective or political action, though an analysis of the uses of the term house and the universe of socio-spatial categories related to it, specifically in the gueto of Port-au-Prince where I have been conducting ethnographic research over recent years.
Bio
Federico Neiburg is Professor in Social Anthropology at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is also lead research for the Brazilian National Research Council and the co-coordinator (with Fernando Rabossi) of the Center for Research in Culture and Economy (NuCEC, www.nucec.net). His publications in English include the volume co-edited with Lygia Sigaud and Benoit de l’Estoile, Empires, Nations, and Natives: Anthropology and State-Making (Duke UP), and articles in journals such as Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cultural Anthropology, Social Anthropology and Anthropological Theory. He is now preparing a collective book on the ethnography of the Haitian social space and co-editing (with Catherine Eagleton) the volume The Age of Empires, for the Cultural History of Money (edited by Bill Maurer, Bloomsbury). He will also publish in English the chapters “Involvement. Making Peace in the Guèto", in Didier Fassin (org.), If True be Told. The Politics of Public Ethnography (Duke), and "Imaginary Moneys in Haiti", in Keith Hart (org.) Money in the Making of a World Society (Bergham). He leads, with Benoit de l’Estoile, the international research program “Forms of government and daily economic practices”. http://ecogov.weebly.com/
[email protected]
[webpage]