The way we can no longer think (now): Anthropology, Islam, and the question of difference
Abstract of paper to be presented by Stefania Pandolfo, UC Berkeley, at the conference "Islam Re-Observed: Clifford Geertz in Morocco"
The paper attempts to rethink the question of difference in anthropology (translation, trans-generation, co-production and relative incommensurability) in the aftermath of violent globalization, but also in the confrontation/encounter with other forms of life. With and beyond the legacy of Geertz's thought, and based on Moroccan ethnography, the paper engages with the decentering of Euro-American conceptual and normative configurations related to the growth of contemporary Islamic movements, and the development of practices and vocabularies inspired by a renewed spiritual or theological sensibility that provide the terrain from which questions can be asked and answers sought in many regions of the Islamic world today.
