eBook - ePub

UFOs, the Absurd, and the Limit of Anthropological Knowledge

Name: UFOs, the Absurd, and the Limit of Anthropological Knowledge
ISBN: 9781040099247

Imagining the Impossible in Chile

Diana Espírito Santo,

186 pages
English
ePUB (mobile friendly)
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - ePub

UFOs, the Absurd, and the Limit of Anthropological Knowledge

Imagining the Impossible in Chile

Diana Espírito Santo,

About this book

This book offers an ethnographic and conceptual analysis of contemporary UFO phenomena, focusing specifically on Chilean ufology and the ufological "absurd", nonsensical instances for their experiencers in which there is no conceptual way out. It asks how anthropology can come to terms with what is not said, what is not known, what is in the dark, or even with what both "is" and "is not". The work draws on three years of participant observation with empirical ufologists, amateur sky watchers, and contactees of varying kinds in Chile. The chapters mobilize three main bodies of literature to elucidate the ufological absurd: negative theology, anthropology of play and deceit, and the physics of dark matter. They explore notions of parallax, paradox, and trickster anthropology. The author takes UFO phenomena, specifically the absurd aspects, as a heuristic with which to posit a conversation between domains; a conversation which highlights darknesses, finiteness, and the limits of representation and media in anthropology, one that could perhaps signal the route to a new language. Consideration is given to how not-knowing can be a space of extreme productiveness for the discipline. The argument put forward is that only by doing an anthropology that looks outside of itself for conceptual inspiration can we come to terms with the non-representable, the un-conceptualizable, the fully paradoxical. This innovative book will be of particular interest to scholars of anthropological theory and religion.

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Yes, you can access UFOs, the Absurd, and the Limit of Anthropological Knowledge by Diana Espírito Santo in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Cultural & Social Anthropology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.