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Cited by 542

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 218 of the 218 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique

Open access
BESSIRE, LUCAS, BOND, DAVID·2014·American Ethnologist

Abstract

What does ontological anthropology promise, what does it presume, and how does it contribute to the formatting of life in our present? Drawing from our respective fieldwork on how Indigenous alterity is coenvisioned and how the lively materiality of hydrocarbons is recognized, we develop an ethnographic and theoretical critique of ontological anthropology. This essay, then, provides an empirical counterweight to what the ontological turn celebrates of Native worlds and what it rejects of modernity. In it, we examine the methodological and conceptual investments of ontological anthropology. The figure of the ontological as commonly invoked, we argue, often narrows the areas of legitimate concern and widens the scope of acceptable disregard within social research. We chart how this paradigm's analytical focus on the future redefines the coordinates of the political as well as anthropology's relation to critique. Finally, we formulate three conceptual theses that encapsulate our criticism and open this discussion to further debate.

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Crossref · 10.1111/amet.12083

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Metadata

Authors
BESSIRE, L., & BOND, D.
Venue
American Ethnologist
Publisher
Wiley
Published
2014-08
Volume
41
Issue
3
Pages
440-456
ISSN
  • 0094-0496 (ISSN-L)
  • 1548-1425
OpenAlex
W1840767353
Cited by
542
References
218
FWCI
188.99
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1111/amet.12083
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BESSIRE, L., & BOND, D. (2014). Ontological anthropology and the deferral of critique. American Ethnologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12083

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.