For an Anthropology of Liberation How does one watch and how does one write across existential borderlands?

Abstract

In his “Existential Manifesto” anthropologist Albert Piette defines "autography" as “a journal of existence,” a “text by oneself on oneself, written as continuously as possible, without any link to a specific field site, in the form of a journal and fragments, to understand not social facts, but one human being,” toward a manner of pursuing anthropology grounded in “hyperlucidity and hypersensitivity.” In this article, arguing for a further "liberating turn" in anthropology, I take Albert Piette’s intervention as an invitation, exploring our anthropological potential for engaging with forms of expression (alternative languages, concepts, and forms of writing) which anthropologists tend to keep for themselves (as private, self-referenced, ego-centered, devoid of purpose in the context of the anthropological analysis).