Description
Book Synopsis For the Orang Rimba of Sumatra – and tropical foragers in general – life in the forest engenders a kind of “connectedness” that is contingent not only on harmonious relations between people, but also between people and the non-human environment, including those supernatural agencies of the forest that people depend on for their spiritual and emotional wellbeing. Exploring this world, anthropologist Ramsey Elkholy treats embodied action and perception as the basis of shared experience and shows how various forms of embodied experience constitute the very foundations of human culture. In a unique methodological contribution, Elkholy adopts a set of body-centered approaches that reflect and capture the day-to-day, moment-to-moment ways in which people engage with the world. Being and Becoming is an important contribution to phenomenological anthropology, hunter-gatherer studies, and to Southeast Asian ethnography more generally.
Trade Review “Being and Becoming perfectly represents the present-day anthropological focus on bodies, senses, and the construction of persons (human and otherwise), as well as the replacement of textual emphases with phenomenological ones.” • Anthropology Review Database
“This is the perfect introduction to phenomenological anthropology, brilliantly combining theoretical insight with ethnographic analysis.” • Gillian Evans, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester
“The book provides a well-written ethnography from a phenomenological approach of a small hunter-gatherer group in Sumatra, known as Orang Rimba. This is a good ethnography, and a good contribution to hunter-gatherer studies and to phenomenological anthropology. It includes some delightful and perceptive discussions.” • Nurit Bird-David, University of Haifa
“This is an interesting and rich ethnography of the Orang Rimba, about whom little published material is available.” • Isabell Herrmans, University of Helsinki
Table of Contents List of Illustrations
Foreword
Tim Ingold
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: INTERSUBJECTIVITY
Chapter 1. Into the Field: The Orang Rimba at Sungai Gelumpang
Chapter 2. Sociality and the Negotiation of Self and Other
Chapter 3. Touch and the Mutual Constitution of Selves and Others
Chapter 4. Forest, Village and the Significance of Movement
PART II: BODY AND WORLD
Chapter 5. Becoming a Hunter
Chapter 6. Hunting
Chapter 7. Becoming in the forest
Chapter 8. Shamanism and the textures of the universe
Chapter 9. Melangun
Epilogue
Orthography and glossary
Bibliography
Index
