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34 | 2010
L'agentivité

Ethnologie et linguistique à la poursuite du sens
Agency: Ethnology and Linguistics in Pursuit of Meaning
Edited by Aurore Monod Becquelin and Valentina Vapnarsky

This issue is dedicated to the theme of agency, analysing and comparing various relationships of dependence and causality between humans and “supernatural” entities manifested through words, behaviour and practices. It is about studying the nature of intentions, controls and powers exercised reciprocally—whether systematically or not—by people the and forces that surround, invade or abandon them, in order to better understand the ontology of supernatural beings and the effectiveness and/or dependence that links them to humans. The specific area analysed concerns agency relative to entities that, throughout indigenous America, populate the world in various guises (guardian angels, animal masters, mothers of plants, mothers of sickness, etc.), and whose relations with humans entail diverse, complex behaviours. These reveal knowledge of the world and ways of understanding causalities (in this case, the causes of phenomena, from plant and animal reproduction to sickness or even cataclysms) within a specific cultural ethos.

Contributors: Jean-Pierre Chaumeil, Pierre Déléage, Laurent Fontaine, Michel de Fornel, Andréa-Luz Gutierrez Choquevilca, Casey High, Pierre-Yves Jacopin, Grégoire Schlemmer, Florencia C. Tola

See also issue 39 « L'agentivité, vol. II : Interactions, grammaire et narrativité (Agency: Interactions, Grammar and Narrativity) »

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