Omens and Effect. Divergent Perspectives on Emerillon Time, Space and Existence
Perle Møhl
2015, Semiosis.fr
When scientists present their versions of the world – in writing, maps, inventories, figures, images, etc. – they pose their imprint upon it. Like omens, their representations not only reflect the world, they do things, they have effect. -•- Perle Møhl has worked with the Emerillon (Teko) of French Guiana since 1989 as an anthropologist, filmmaker and collaborator in media productions. In Omens and Effect, she traces the tangible effects of established scientific descriptions – omens – in the daily lives of the Emerillon, and explores the creative activities the Emerillon have engaged in to counter such omens, opposing them with their own inventive and optimistic descriptions of the world, and their place and possibilities within it. The result is a semiotic struggle about definitions and the right to make them count.
• The book, based on a filmic anthropology, comes with the prizewinning documentary film, « Confluences – Emerillon of French Guiana ».
• Made as an integrated part of the fieldwork and the investigation of the various definitions of Emerillonhood, Confluences proposes a sensuous and complementary type of anthropological knowledge about Emerillon being as it is lived and conceived in daily life.
• Book: 280 pages, 34 illust, ISBN (paperback): 979-10-90448-02-5 • Languages: Book: English – DVD: English & French.
• (the DVD is included when you buy the book)
