Michael Taussig

The mimetic faculty is the nature that culture uses to create second nature.

Culture is not a thing, but a process of making and unmaking, of becoming and unbecoming.

The colonial encounter is not simply a clash of cultures, but a violent intertwining of subjectivities.

The body is not merely a biological entity, but a site of cultural inscription and political struggle.

Terror is not just a state of mind, but a social relation, a way of organizing power.

The commodity is not just an object, but a social hieroglyph, a condensed history of human labor and desire.

The anthropologist's gaze is never innocent; it is always entangled in the power relations of the field.

History is not a linear progression, but a series of ruptures and repetitions, of echoes and premonitions.

The magical is not opposed to the rational, but is often its hidden twin, its uncanny double.

To understand the present, we must delve into the past, not as a static archive, but as a living, breathing force.

The act of writing is itself a form of mimesis, a way of bringing the world into being through language.

The wild man is not a primitive other, but a figure of our own repressed desires and anxieties.

The senses are not passive receptors, but active constructors of reality.

The gift is never truly free; it always carries with it a burden of obligation and expectation.

The boundary between self and other is always porous, always shifting.

The power of the image lies in its ability to both reveal and conceal, to enchant and to deceive.

The state of exception is not an aberration, but an integral part of modern governance.

The anthropologist is a professional eavesdropper, a collector of whispers and rumors.

The past is not dead; it is not even past.

The act of seeing is always an act of interpretation, a way of making sense of the world.