Editing Animism (section)

=== Postmodern anthropology ===
More recently, postmodern anthropologists are increasingly engaging with the concept of animism. [[Modernism]] is characterized by a [[Cartesianism|Cartesian]] [[Cartesian dualism|subject-object dualism]] that divides the subjective from the objective, and culture from nature. In the modernist view, animism is the inverse of [[scientism]], and hence, is deemed inherently invalid by some anthropologists. Drawing on the work of [[Bruno Latour]], some anthropologists question modernist assumptions and theorize that all societies continue to "animate" the world around them. In contrast to Tylor's reasoning, however, this "animism" is considered to be more than just a remnant of primitive thought. More specifically, the "animism" of modernity is characterized by humanity's "professional subcultures", as in the ability to treat the world as a detached entity within a delimited sphere of activity.

Human beings continue to create personal relationships with elements of the aforementioned objective world, such as pets, cars, or teddy bears, which are recognized as subjects. As such, these entities are "approached as communicative subjects rather than the inert objects perceived by modernists."<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hornborg |first=Alf |s2cid=143991508 |title=Animism, fetishism, and objectivism as strategies for knowing (or not knowing) the world |journal=Ethnos |year=2006 |volume=71 |issue=1 |pages=22–4 |doi=10.1080/00141840600603129}}</ref> These approaches aim to avoid the modernist assumption that the environment consists of a physical world distinct from the world of humans, as well as the modernist conception of the person being composed dualistically of a body and a soul.<ref name="Bird-David 1999 S68"/>

[[Nurit Bird-David]] argues that:<ref name="Bird-David 1999 S68" />

{{Blockquote|text=Positivistic ideas about the meaning of 'nature', 'life', and 'personhood' misdirected these previous attempts to understand the local concepts. Classical theoreticians (it is argued) attributed their own modernist ideas of self to 'primitive peoples' while asserting that the 'primitive peoples' read their idea of self into others!}}

She explains that animism is a "relational [[epistemology]]" rather than a failure of primitive reasoning. That is, self-identity among animists is based on their relationships with others, rather than any distinctive features of the "self". Instead of focusing on the essentialized, modernist self (the "individual"), persons are viewed as bundles of social relationships ("dividuals"), some of which include "superpersons" (i.e. non-humans).

[[File:Autel animiste. Village Bozo, Mopti, Bandiagara, Mali. Date du cliché 25-12-1972.jpg|thumb|left|Animist altar, [[Bozo people|Bozo]] village, [[Mopti]], [[Bandiagara]], Mali, in 1972|upright=1.2]]
Stewart Guthrie expressed criticism of Bird-David's attitude towards animism, believing that it promulgated the view that "the world is in large measure whatever our local imagination makes it." This, he felt, would result in anthropology abandoning "the scientific project."{{sfn|Guthrie|2000|p=107}}

Like Bird-David, [[Tim Ingold]] argues that animists do not see themselves as separate from their environment:<ref>{{cite book|last=Ingold |first=Tim |author-link=Tim Ingold |url=https://archive.org/details/perceptionenviro00ingo |title=The Perception of the Environment: Essays in livelihood, dwelling, and skill |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2000 |place=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/perceptionenviro00ingo/page/n56 42] |url-access=limited}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=Hunter-gatherers do not, as a rule, approach their environment as an external world of nature that has to be 'grasped' intellectually ... indeed the separation of mind and nature has no place in their thought and practice.}}

[[Rane Willerslev]] extends the argument by noting that animists reject this Cartesian dualism and that the animist self identifies with the world, "feeling at once ''within'' and ''apart'' from it so that the two glide ceaselessly in and out of each other in a sealed circuit".{{sfn|Willerslev|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/soulhuntershunti00will/page/n40 24]}} The animist hunter is thus aware of himself as a human hunter, but, through mimicry, is able to assume the viewpoint, senses, and sensibilities of his prey, to be one with it.{{sfn|Willerslev|2007|p=[https://archive.org/details/soulhuntershunti00will/page/n43 27]}} [[Shamanism]], in this view, is an everyday attempt to influence spirits of ancestors and animals, by mirroring their behaviors, as the hunter does its prey.