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Deleuze and the Anthropology of Becoming

Biehl, João, Locke, Peter·2010·Current Anthropology
DOI 10.1086/651466
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Abstract

Philosopher Gilles Deleuze emphasizes the primacy of desire over power and the openness and flux of social fields. In this article, we place our ethnographic projects among the urban poor in Brazil and Bosnia‐Herzegovina in dialogue with Deleuze’s cartographic approach to subjectivity and his reflections on control and the transformative potential of becoming. As people scavenge for resources and care, they must deal with the encroachment of psychiatric diagnostics and treatments in broken public institutions and in altered forms of common sense. By reading our cases in light of Deleuze’s ideas, we uphold the rights of microanalysis, bringing into view the immanent fields that people, in all their ambiguity, invent and live by. Such fields of action and significance—leaking out on all sides—are mediated by power and knowledge, but they are also animated by claims to basic rights and desires. In making public a nuanced understanding of these fields—always at risk of disappearing—anthropologists still allow for larger structural and institutional processes to become visible and their true effect known. This fieldwork/philosophical dialogue highlights the limits of psychiatric models of symptoms and human agency and supplements applications of concepts such as biopolitics, structural violence, and social suffering in anthropology. Continually adjusting itself to the reality of contemporary lives and worlds, the anthropological venture has the potential of art: to invoke neglecte…

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Metadata

Authors
Biehl, J., & Locke, P.
ORCID
Biehl, João
Venue
Current Anthropology
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Published
2010-06
Volume
51
Issue
3
Pages
317-351
ISSN
  • 0011-3204 (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-5382
DOI
10.1086/651466
OpenAlex
W2152723912
Cited by
484
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 29 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 51 · 2020: 65 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 56 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 19 · 2014: 39 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 13
FWCI
74.19
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Current Anthropology (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Anthropological Studies and Insights
  • Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Posthumanist Ethics and Activism
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
Keywords
Gilles Deleuze, becoming, desire, control, urban poverty, psychiatric diagnosis, mental health services, microanalysis, biopolitics, structural violence, social suffering, human agency, power and knowledge, Brazil, Bosnia and Herzegovina

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