Making Meaning Present: Semiotics and the Ontological Life of Stones in West Africa

Abstract

Semiotics, which is a foundational principle of scientific thought, has also shaped anthropology's understanding of live stones that serve as shrines in the savannah region of West Africa, such as in the Commune of Cobly of northwestern Benin. Semiotics either reduce live stones and other religious and ontological phenomena to a function of signification or they recast them as semiotic anomalies attributable to the Other. Either way leads to an epistemological paradox in which such phenomena can be rationally understood yet existentially denied. I propose to counter this by introducing a new type of entity, which I call the "onton." Building on the notion of presence and the anthropology of ontology, I understand ontons as indivisible and non-representational entities that cannot be broken down into different sign components. Ontons are more than meaningful; they are made present in the world when other entities relate to them through the process of presencing that shifts the focus from meaning to action. Presencing, which builds on semiotics, is guided by different practices, which, in turn, can account for ontological diversity and differentiation. I claim that presencing, which allows for ontonic entities, leads to a deeper understanding of ontology and human experience more broadly. Meaning as a basis for communication is thus extended to include presence as a basis for a wider engagement with the world, thereby breaking down difference between humans, animals and things.

Thinking Anthropologically for the Theologically and Missiologically Engaged

“…When I tried to get my head around what I considered purely material things-such as stones-are for people in northwestern Benin, West Africa, I found my preconceived ideas wanting. Neither did existing anthropological theories of materiality suffice to account for what I observed (Merz 2017). Anthropological reflexivity proved key in solving this problem.…”

Response to Comment by Michael Jindra on Questions of Culture, Anthropology, and the Bible

“…A discipline that studies cultural and human diversity seems to me deeply flawed when its practitioners prescribe its foundational culturally situated approach and theoretical basis to others. This not only restricts access to science, but also limits analytical possibilities to the extent of not being able to take counterparts seriously, thereby curtailing our understanding of humanity (Merz 2017(Merz , forthcoming 2021.…”

Object, subject, thing

“…Thus, Tamil Hindu ritual experts are richly interesting to the burgeoning field of material-religion studies. This is because their answer to the question of what animates animated things neither differentiates between an immaterial agency that acts and a materiality that is acted on (as in certain Protestant understandings; Engelke 2005), nor does it ascribe a priori aliveness to material things (Merz 2017).…”