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On Visual Coherence and Visual Excess
Writing, Diagrams, and Anthropological Form
in Social Analysis
Author:
Matei Candea
Matei Candea
Reader, University of Cambridge, England mc288@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract
This article reflects on the power and dangers of diagrams as a mode of anthropological exposition, comparing this particular form of non-text to the brief dalliance of mid-century anthropology with algebraic and logical formulae. It has been claimed that diagrams, like formulae, are clearer, simpler, or less deceptive than textual argument. By contrast, this article argues that diagrams are just as slippery and tricky as words, but that images and words slip and slide in different ways. Holding both diagrams and words together when building an argument enables not only a specific kind of rigor, but also moments of unexpected theoretical invention. This technique of holding together contrasting heuristics scales up as a productive epistemic device for anthropology more broadly.
Contributor Notes
Matei Candea is a Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Corsican Fragments (2010) and Comparison in Anthropology: The Impossible Method (2018), and the editor of The Social after Gabriel Tarde (2010) and Schools and Styles of Anthropological Theory (2018). He has worked on alterity and belonging in Corsica and on human-animal relations in biological science. He is currently the Principal Investigator of an ERC-funded research project comparing the ethics, epistemics, and heuristics of freedom of speech in Europe. E-mail: mc288@cam.ac.uk