Anthropology and the power of the erotics

Abstract

This paper is an invitation to reflect on the importance eroticism may have in the different stages of anthropological work (gathering information, analysis, writing, presenting to an audience…), starting from a definition of eroticism as potential and creative force, which includes but not be limited to the sexual sense of the term; an approach that may serve to capture the dynamic, sensorial intensity of both pleasant and unpleasant human experiences. In order to do so, I turn to classic texts by Audre Lorde, Gilles Deleuze/Félix Guattari and Georges Bataille as well as current authors such as Maria Livia Alga, Alba Barbé, Adriana Guzmán and Elisa Lipkau. But, above all, I take inspiration from Susan Sontag’s essay “Against Interpretation”, published originally in 1966 and applied to art criticism. Following a brief revision of anthropological research in the field of sexuality, I address different questions relating to importance of commitment and erotic affectation in ethnography, developed above all in certain fields such as visual anthropology and feminist anthropology. One question guides my entire reflection: What would an erotics of anthropological research be and in what sense could that be of use?.