On Jakobson’s difficulty, or the tediousness of technical language

 

As perennial amateur, apprentice, an anthropologist always encounters techne in the form of a non-understanding – entering into a relation with this dimension is an act of de-territorialization. 

 

The encounter with specialized discourse is a constitutive element of the practice of difference: to recognize the relevance of professional/professorial discourse but sidetrack its will to completion. No poetry of anthropology without techne, because an amateur needs precision, even more precision than professionals cultivating well -rehearsed territories. Because it walks uncharted paths, an apprentice needs to document, examine, analyze, detect the micro-logics at play. Only via precision can the poetic dis-function be made operative. 

 

But, at the same time, no poetry of anthropology without a dislocation of techne’s totalizing understanding, without a de-territorialization of the knowledge that techne provides but cannot ultimately come to terms with because of its refusal to acknowledge non-knowledge.

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