Objects and Bodies: Some Phenomenological Implications of Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte

Weiss, Brad

Item

Objects and Bodies: Some Phenomenological Implications of Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte

Weiss, Brad

Abstract

Grounded in collective interactions that are often quite contentious, knowledge is formulated in the world (objectified), and tangibly experienced (embodied) by the agents engaged in these interactions. As a means of acting on the world in order to transform it, knowledge is implicitly powerful. Yet, the consequences of that power are only realized through the context in which they are carried out. Thus, the ambiguous character of such knowledge must be evaluated by social agents in the course of their activities. By drawing attention to these dimensions of knowledge as power which enable social agents to act on, and so transform, themselves as they transform the world, this essay broadly considers the implications of the dialectics of objectification and embodiment so ably detailed by Lambek.