Description

Book Synopsis

An ethnographic exploration of anthropological failure through the Mapuche archetypes of witch, clown, and usurper
How do we learn what failure looks like? During the years anthropologist Magnus Course spent living with Indigenous Mapuche people in southern Chile, he came to understand failureboth his own and those of the discipline of anthropologythrough Mapuche narratives of the witch, the clown, and the usurper. In a context of enduring poverty and racism, increasing state repression, and his own disintegration, he began to realize that these figures of failure, and their insatiable appetites for destruction, greed, and property, reflected as much upon his own failings as on anybody else's, but also showed the way forward to a better way to live.
Set amidst the stunning natural beauty and political tragedies of southern Chile, Three Ways to Fail is the story of what it means to become a part of other people's lives, of what it means to fail them, and of wh

Three Ways to Fail

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    A Hardback by Magnus Course

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      Book details

      Publisher University of Pennsylvania Press
      Published 9/17/2024
      ISBN-13 9781512826555
      978-1512826555
      ISBN-10 1512826553

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      An ethnographic exploration of anthropological failure through the Mapuche archetypes of witch, clown, and usurper
      How do we learn what failure looks like? During the years anthropologist Magnus Course spent living with Indigenous Mapuche people in southern Chile, he came to understand failureboth his own and those of the discipline of anthropologythrough Mapuche narratives of the witch, the clown, and the usurper. In a context of enduring poverty and racism, increasing state repression, and his own disintegration, he began to realize that these figures of failure, and their insatiable appetites for destruction, greed, and property, reflected as much upon his own failings as on anybody else's, but also showed the way forward to a better way to live.
      Set amidst the stunning natural beauty and political tragedies of southern Chile, Three Ways to Fail is the story of what it means to become a part of other people's lives, of what it means to fail them, and of wh

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