Abstract:I would like to thank Critique of Anthropology for its support of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory (GDAT). We are also grateful to C-SAP for enabling GDAT to subsidize graduate students from various UK universities to attend the meeting in Manchester. Thanks also to Social Anthropology at Manchester, the four speakers and the lively audience. Michael Cacioppo Belantara recorded the discussion, Aliaa Remtilla transcribed it and Michael Adkins did much of the running around.
“…Indeed, as Venkatesan (in Venkatesan et al . : 211) noted:the idiom of love might discursively underpin certain relations or, more strongly, might suffuse them, but the relations themselves play out in forms that can be studied without having to make ‘love’ the object of enquiry, or mobilise it as a form of explanation.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Partly this is because, as Myers (: 344) concluded, reading or characterising feelings such as love or intimacy ‘is not as easy as it first appears’ and partly because, as Jeanette Edwards (in Venkatesan et al . : 213) more recently put it, ‘what constitutes love and how it is lived is rare in the ethnographic account’. Though Myers’ analysis was primarily of Pintupi Aboriginal people, it also extended to non‐Pintupi (dubbed ‘Europeans’ in Myers’ account) with whom they co‐resided.…”
Section: Shared Substance and The Incorporation Of Strangersmentioning
Intimate relationships between Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people have generally been pursued within the transactional modalities afforded by economy and kinship (e.g. Hamilton 1972; Tonkinson 1990; Redmond 2005). A parallel anthropological literature (e.g. Myers 1979; Venkatesan et al. 2011), however, has critiqued these emphases, and has instead highlighted the need to consider the emotional experiences of individuals. One of the types of individuals considered here is the stranger, a figurative character that Simmel (1950: 403) described as ‘no owner of soil’. In this paper I explore the experiences of one of these strangers, ‘Andrew’, a non‐Aboriginal man who was the partner of an Aboriginal woman and living in the remote Aboriginal town of Mornington Island in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. In interpreting Andrew's experiences, I argue for an analytic frame based on understanding how transformative personal encounters including love can bring together and sustain relationships between those of (sometimes) vastly different socio‐cultural backgrounds.
“…Indeed, as Venkatesan (in Venkatesan et al . : 211) noted:the idiom of love might discursively underpin certain relations or, more strongly, might suffuse them, but the relations themselves play out in forms that can be studied without having to make ‘love’ the object of enquiry, or mobilise it as a form of explanation.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Partly this is because, as Myers (: 344) concluded, reading or characterising feelings such as love or intimacy ‘is not as easy as it first appears’ and partly because, as Jeanette Edwards (in Venkatesan et al . : 213) more recently put it, ‘what constitutes love and how it is lived is rare in the ethnographic account’. Though Myers’ analysis was primarily of Pintupi Aboriginal people, it also extended to non‐Pintupi (dubbed ‘Europeans’ in Myers’ account) with whom they co‐resided.…”
Section: Shared Substance and The Incorporation Of Strangersmentioning
Intimate relationships between Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people have generally been pursued within the transactional modalities afforded by economy and kinship (e.g. Hamilton 1972; Tonkinson 1990; Redmond 2005). A parallel anthropological literature (e.g. Myers 1979; Venkatesan et al. 2011), however, has critiqued these emphases, and has instead highlighted the need to consider the emotional experiences of individuals. One of the types of individuals considered here is the stranger, a figurative character that Simmel (1950: 403) described as ‘no owner of soil’. In this paper I explore the experiences of one of these strangers, ‘Andrew’, a non‐Aboriginal man who was the partner of an Aboriginal woman and living in the remote Aboriginal town of Mornington Island in the southern Gulf of Carpentaria. In interpreting Andrew's experiences, I argue for an analytic frame based on understanding how transformative personal encounters including love can bring together and sustain relationships between those of (sometimes) vastly different socio‐cultural backgrounds.
“…However, sexuality tends to be somewhat differentiated from romantic love, and the latter is generally seen as superior to the former (Illouz 1997:159 1997:191,207). While the plausibility of identifying a universal definition of romantic love "outside the moral and political conditions within which it acquires and transmits its meaning" (Venkatesan et al 2011:217) has been questioned, for the purposes of discussing romantic love in Australia, the above definition, which is in keeping with "Western" folk models, will suffice.…”
“… Love as an ethnographic term, something David and Wendy spoke about, rather than a theoretically loaded category (Venkatesan et al : for an overview of love in anthropology).…”
mentioning
confidence: 99%
“…More illustrations of this can be found in Voeten's account of tunnel people in New York or Whyte's classic account of Chicago gangs (Voeten 2010;Whyte 1943). 10 Love as an ethnographic term, something David and Wendy spoke about, rather than a theoretically loaded category (Venkatesan et al 2011: for an overview of love in anthropology).…”
Care for homeless people in general and homeless substance abusers in particular has been well explored as a research topic (Fisher and Collins ; Seal ; Desjarlais ; Pleace and Quilgars ; Bevan ; Briggs ). Historically, academics have been interested in care in settings as diverse as families, hospitals, asylums, poorhouses, the criminal justice system and more recently what has been called the ‘community’. In this paper, I want to look at two different dimensions of care in a particular social world of substance using homeless people in London where the people are not always the likely recipients but active providers of care. I understand care in Mol's and Winance's sense as a process of tinkering (Mol ; Winance ). The most dominant form of care is produced by many homeless substance users themselves: they care for drugs. The relationship to ‘their’ substance is often highly intimate and characterized by physical and emotional closeness, commitment and accord. Drugs develop person‐like characteristics and ‘demand’ care, promising intimacy and a sense of self. Dominated by the need to care for drugs in this way, other (human‐to‐human) relationships can become increasingly fragmented and the social net can become hollowed out, instrumental and even violent. Geographies split apart with different logics between public and intimate; sub‐cities emerge. But at the same time as the drug develops into the object of care demanding attention, the responsibility to care can develop a shared dimension. Friendships and love relationships grow based on intimate care which still centre on drugs but go far beyond it in their carefulness and interconnection. This is where geographies merge, connections are made and futures are built.
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