Fate in the Narrativity and Experience of Selfhood, a Case From Taiwanese Chhiam Divination

Abstract

In this article, I examine the deployment of poetry in Taiwanese practices of calculating fate. Observing that fate is both a grounding notion to self-representation in narrative and to the recognition of efficacious agents in a social field, I analyze texts and interpretive practices of poetic divination, attending to specific features that give fate its compelling qualities. Most important among these features is the chronotopic character of divination poems, which shape the experience of selfhood in alternation and encounter through time. Investigating how poetic contrast sets (such as those between gathering and dispersal, fate as coterminous with a lifespan and fate as linked to specific opportunities) produce these chronotopes, I ask how the poetics of fate informs the distribution and abeyance of agency in particular situations of crisis. In particular, I focus on crises that lead to divination, emerging as fresh junctures in life historical narratives. Finally, in light of the role of fate in the interpretation of these variously distributed junctures and agents, I suggest that the notion of fate could inform ethnographic work on micropolitics.[divination, poetics, chronotopes, narrativity, agency, life history, Taiwan] Fate and freedom are promised to each other. -Buber, / and Thou On the steps of Lokkang Longsan si (m: Lukang Longshan szu), A-Sian, a spirit medium in one of Lokkang's many neighborhood temples, told me a story about his first glimpse of the Longsan si temple. 1 The story was part of a larger narrative about his family's return to their hometown, following his father's 20-year sojourn in Kohiong (Kaohsiung), a major industrial city to the south, where A-Sian was born. The events occurred in 1977, when A-Sian was six: This place [Longsan si] has always given me a mysterious, sacred feeling. When my father brought us back here [to Lokkang], that evening, we came over here. In those days, the area in front of the temple was not all cleaned up like it is today. It was full of amusements and small stands. It was all very noisy and bustling [nao-jiat, m: re-nao\. When you would enter the gate, it was like going from a noisy market to a still place. And the eaves, although none of it was repaired yet, were so high and fantastically carved. Maybe this was because I was so small then. Thick clouds of incense twisted about the rafters, giving one the feeling of magical power [leng; m: ling]. In the market, my parents bought my brother and me balloons. My brother's was red and round. Mine was blue-green and long. Because we were mischievous kids, we got into a scuffle; and in the temple, I lost hold of my balloon. It floated high into the ceiling. I remember American Ethnologist 29(4):857-877. american ethnologistit clearly there, the balloon floating up there amid the carved rafters, incense curling about them. That is when I began to think of Longsan si as efficacious.When I met A-Sian in 1993, he shared a wanderer's fate with his father. Whereas his parents remained in Lokkang, A-Sian lived betwe...

For an anthropology of destiny

“…Anthropology often discusses destiny in conjunction with other powerful forces and entities such as luck and fortune, providence and chance. This analytic aggregation reflects the ethnographic porousness of these concepts and vocabularies in everyday life, where they are often contextually invoked, in varying combinations, to make sense or actively nurture success (D'Angelo 2015; Douglas [1966] 2001) and divine blessing (Jamous 1981), fortune and luck (da Col 2012; Gaibazzi and Gardini 2015; Menin 2016) and wellbeing (Lambek 1993), or to make past events and uncertain futures partially intelligible (Evans-Pritchard 1976;Guenzi 2013;Hatfield 2002;Holbraad 2012). As Vincent Crapanzano puts it: "There is probably no society that explains every contingent event in terms of a single power, though when pushed for an explanation, they may refer to such power.…”

“…An anthropology of destiny is, in this sense, also (and inevitably so) an anthropological reflection on power(s)-a crucial question discussed further in Samuli Schielke's afterword. Such powers generally emerge in and through time: destiny's "composite temporality" (Hatfield 2002) constitutes a critical dimension of the malleable fixity discussed thus far.…”

“…Time is a key trope through which theories of destiny are formulated, and different temporal positionings of the ethnographic and theoretical gaze can themselves generate radically different understandings of destiny and its efficacy. This is not only because reckoning with destiny requires specific temporal knowledge and careful temporal practices (Hatfield 2002;Nevola, this issue), but also because destiny's malleable fixity is often positioned in time, and reveals itself through timefrom a person's lifetime (e.g., Homola, this issue; Last 2013), to the unfolding of human history itself (see Palmié and Stewart 2015).…”

“…Questions surrounding humans' capacity to act and effect change when life and possibility are partially or wholly determined by external, often nonnegotiable, powers have long been at the core of theological and philosophical traditions-from the ancient Greek notion of moira and early Asian philosophies of karma, to centuries-old Islamic debates on the concept of qad ̣āʾ waʾl-qadar (God's decree and determination). In anthro-pology, classic works such as Oedipus and Job in West African religion by Meyer Fortes (1959) as well as contemporary ethnographic discussions of fate and destiny (da Col andHumphrey 2012a, 2012b;Festa 2007;Guenzi 2013;Hamdy 2009;Harrell 1987;Hatfield 2002; Nieswand 2010; Sangren 2012) testify to destiny's key role in local thinking and practice.…”

Fate, Agency, and the Economy of Desire in Chinese Ritual and Society

“…: 113). Donald Hatfield (2002) provides another insightful analysis of the role of fate, arguing that the discourse of fate discernible in Taiwanese divinatory practices constitutes a complex but implicit and unintended suturing of individual existential concerns to productive and reproductive processes that find institutional form in families and communities. Both analyses imply that comprehending the peculiarly Chinese fascination with fate, divination, and gambling raises fundamentally human existential issues.…”