Une promenade dans la forêt finlandaise, la caresse de l'écorce des arbres, un refrain d'Elvis Presley, un navire flottant dans le ciel de l'Irlande du Moyen Âge, un alpiniste aigri, le chant d'un flocon de neige, les eaux souterraines de Paris, des oeuvres de Giuseppe Penone, David Nash ou Tomás Saraceno... L'air de rien, brodant à partir d'un souvenir personnel, d'une anecdote ou d'une rencontre avec un artiste, Tim Ingold prend soin des mots et des idées et maîtrise à la perfection l'art d'un récit qui monte progressivement en puissance théorique de manière à renverser complètement notre manière d'envisager notre rapport au monde. Correspondances, c'est à la fois la forme de ces courts textes écrits comme s'il s'adressait à un ami ; c'est aussi, sur le fond, son objectif ultime : cesser de se confronter aux choses et tenter de correspondre avec elles en tissant un dialogue fertile pour la pensée, condition sine qua non pour avoir une chance de retomber amoureux du monde.
"Pour qu'une pensée soit une idée, elle doit déranger, perturber, telle une rafale de vent sur un tas de feuilles mortes."
Anthropologue britannique né en 1948, spécialiste du peuple sami de Laponie, Tim Ingold est professeur émérite à l'université d'Aberdeen. Proche de Philippe Descola, il est l'un des principaux artisans du renouveau de l'anthropologie en y incluant la dimension non humaine et l'ensemble du vivant dans ses rapports avec les humains.
L'éducation, c'est bien plus que l'enseignement et l'apprentissage. L'anthropologie, bien plus qu'étudier la vie des autres personnes. Dans ce livre provocateur, Tim Ingold soutient que l'anthropologie, comme l'éducation, constituent des manières d'étudier la vie, et de la mener, avec les autres et va bien au-delà de l'exploration de l'interface entre les deux disciplines de l'anthropologie et de la recherche en éducation.
Humanity is at a crossroads. We face mounting inequality, escalating political violence, warring fundamentalisms and an environmental crisis of planetary proportions. How can we fashion a world that has room for everyone, for generations to come? What are the possibilities, in such a world, of collective human life? These are urgent questions, and no discipline is better placed to address them than anthropology. It does so by bringing to bear the wisdom and experience of people everywhere, whatever their backgrounds and walks of life.
In this passionately argued book, Tim Ingold relates how a field of study once committed to ideals of progress collapsed amidst the ruins of war and colonialism, only to be reborn as a discipline of hope, destined to take centre stage in debating the most pressing intellectual, ethical and political issues of our time. He shows why anthropology matters to us all.
Introducing Polity's Why It Matters series: In these short and lively books, world-leading thinkers make the case for the importance of their subjects and aim to inspire a new generation of students.
We inhabit a world of more than humans. For life to flourish, we must listen to the calls this world makes on us, and respond with care, sensitivity and judgement. That is what it means to correspond, to join our lives with those of the beings, matters and elements with whom, and with which, we dwell upon the earth. In this book, anthropologist Tim Ingold corresponds with landscapes and forests, oceans and skies, monuments and artworks. To each he brings the same spontaneity of thought and observation, the same intimacy and lightness of touch, but also the same affection, longing and care that, in the days when we used to write letters by hand, we would bring to our correspondences with one another. The result is a profound yet accessible inquiry into ways of attending to the world around us, into the relation between art and life, and into the craft of writing itself. At a time of environmental crisis, when words so often seem to fail us, Ingold points to how the practice of correspondence can help restore our kinship with a stricken earth.
Is the future about to close in, or is it open to new horizons? For anthropologist Tim Ingold, the root of our difficulty in facing up to the future lies in the way we think about generations. We imagine them as layers, succeeding one another like sheets in a stack. This view figures as a largely unquestioned backdrop to discussions of evolution, life and death, longevity, extinction, sustainability, education, climate change and other matters of contemporary concern. What if we were to think of generations, instead, as wrapping around one another along their length, more like fibres in a rope than stacked sheets? In this compelling new book, Ingold argues that a return to the idea that life is forged in the collaboration of overlapping generations might not only assuage some of our anxieties, but also offer a lasting foundation for future coexistence. But it would mean having to abandon our faith both in the inevitability of progress, and in the ability of science and technology to cushion humanity from environmental impacts. A perfect world is not around the corner, nor will our troubles ever end. Nevertheless, for as long as life continues, there is hope for generations to come.
