Chunnilal's Hauntology: Rajasthan's Ghosts, Time Going Badly, and Anthropological Voice. (26th January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McDowell, Andrew J.
• Other Names: Good Byron guestEditor.; Rahimi Sadeq guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Ethos. Volume 47:Number 4(2019:Dec.)
• Page Start: 501
• Page End: 518
• Publication Date: 2020-01-26
• Subjects: hauntology -- India -- voice -- subjectivity; Ethnopsychology -- Periodicals; Personality and culture -- Periodicals; 155.805
• DOI: 10.1111/etho.12261
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0091-2131

Abstract

Abstract: Ghosts are omnipresent in rural Rajasthan. I recount five ghostly incidents to consider the possibility of ghosts within anthropological fieldwork and voice. Haunting space and time, ghosts also seem to be haunted by desire, power, literature, and bodies. Looking closely to the multiple hauntings of and on ghosts, I examine the ways such multiplex spooks acquire or usurp voice. By taking seriously the possibility of ghosts within or occupying the everyday of claims making, I engage the ways ghosts might point anthropology toward a more anxious relationship with utterance and an ethics of voice that allows for a haunted subject. Recognizing the multiplex nature of ghosts renders them irreducible to windows onto psyche, memory, or social forms and instead leads to a more dynamic perspective on the subject which cannot be unitary or wholly reflexive in a world with ghosts.