Social Anthropology Seminar - Monday, 27th March 2017 - Dr Amy Penfield – University of Manchester
| Dates: | 27 March 2017 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Dr Amy Penfield |
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Social Anthropology Seminar
Monday, 27th March 2017
Dr Amy Penfield – University of Manchester
Fueling The Uncanny: Gasoline, Material Politics And The New Magical State In Venezuelan Amazonia
This paper explores how national politics is experienced in material form among the Sanema of Venezuelan Amazonia, with particular attention to the flood of highly subsidized gasoline into the region. By revisiting Coronil’s account of the Venezuelan ‘magical state’, which draws attention to the exceptional power of oil wealth, the paper will consider how oil derivatives are experienced in similarly enchanting ways on a much more tangible level, offering a perspective on oil beyond the rhetorical frame with which it is usually examined. Furthermore, by viewing material politics in combination with a theory of cosmopolitics - which purports to offer alternative ways of conceptualizing politics that includes nonhuman actors – I shall explore how gasoline can traverse the divide between nature and culture and, in the case presented, even be granted partial admittance into the animist cosmos. The paper will conclude by considering what local interpretations of gasoline’s uncanny properties can tell us about experiences of uncertainty and wonder in both political and cosmological domains.
2.016/.017
Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building
4:15 – 6:00pm
(Tea and coffee available outside the room from 4:00pm)
ALL WELCOME!
Speaker
Dr Amy Penfield
Role: Speaker
Organisation: University of Manchester
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.016 / 17 (Second Floor Boardroom)
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
