Post-socialist animism: personhood, necro-personas and public past in Inner Asia

Zbigniew Szmyt

doi:10.26881/etno.2020.6.09

Autor

Zbigniew Szmyt Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26881/etno.2020.6.09

Słowa kluczowe:

personhood, animism, necro-persona, mythopraxis, public past, Inner Asia

Abstrakt

This paper investigates the relationship between animism and public past in post-socialist Inner Asia. The analysis was based on three case studies highlighting key features of the relationship between local conceptions of personhood, non-human agency, and their role in structuring native visions of the past: (1) negotiations between families and the spirits of their ancestors – victims of communist purges in Mongolia, (2) a powerful necro-persona that allows local communities to gain political subjectivity and undermine conventional post-Soviet historical narratives, and (3) the return of the undead lama Itigilov that caused Buddhist revival in Buryatia. Posthuman agents have been involved in mythopraxis, through which native regimes of historicity are established.

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Biogram autora

Zbigniew Szmyt - Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

Cultural anthropologist, Assistant professor at the Institute of Anthropology and Ethnology, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań . His research interests focus on border studies, urbanization, migrations and ethnic processes in Inner Asia.

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