Reassembling the social: Bruno Latour’s legacy in contemporary anthropology
Panel 22 / Quarto Convegno Nazionale SIAC “Il ritorno del sociale”, Sapienza Università di Roma, 21-22-23 settembre 2023
Proponenti: Giovanni Fava (Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia), Nicola Manghi (EHESS)
Abstract
Bruno Latour has been one of the most eclectic and unclassifiable thinkers of our time. Capable of influencing the most disparate fields of study and practices, Bruno Latour has transformed the intellectual landscape he has crossed like few others. Nowadays, his contributions represent a privileged point of access to contemporary issues. This is true in particular for anthropology: from the ethnography of laboratories developed in his early works, to the “anthropology of the moderns”, from his reflections on non-human agency to his interest in ecological issues, his research path has contributed to the theoretical development of anthropology and ethnography. This panel aims to exploit the heritage that Latour leaves to anthropology both by analyzing the moments of his reflection more explicitly linked to the discipline and its tools, and by exhibiting the effectiveness of the notions he helped to define: “non-human”, “agency”, “collective”, “Gaia”. The aim of the panel is to assess Latour’s legacy at the light of the question of the “social” in the anthropological and ethnological fields.
The topics we would like to consider in this panel are:
Analysis and structure of the social dimension from the perspective of ANT;
Applicability of the Latourian conception of the social at the ethnographic work;
Social dimension and non-human anthropologies;
The relationship between agency, social dimension and ecology;
Criticism of the Latourian conception of the social.
Keywords: Bruno Latour, social, ANT, ecology, agency
Lingue accettate: Italiano / English / Français
