Michael Taussig
Australian-American anthropologist who explored mimesis, shamanism, and colonial perceptions.
Most quoted
"To understand the present, we must delve into the past, not as a static archive, but as a living, breathing force."
— from Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Senses, 1993
"The magic of the state lies not in its power, but in the illusion it weaves around our perceptions of reality."
— from The Magic of the State, 2012
"The commodity is not just an object, but a social hieroglyph, a condensed history of human labor and desire."
— from The Nervous System, 1992
All quotes by Michael Taussig (102)
The market is not a natural force, but a social construct, imbued with its own forms of magic and ritual.
The human condition is one of constant becoming, of perpetual transformation.
The power of the word lies in its ability to conjure worlds, to create realities.
The colonial project was not just about economic exploitation, but about the control of bodies and minds.
The anthropologist's task is to make the familiar strange, and the strange familiar.
The real is always mediated, always filtered through the lens of culture and history.
The act of remembering is not a passive retrieval, but an active reconstruction.
The uncanny is not just a psychological phenomenon, but a social and political one.
The anthropologist is a trickster figure, a mediator between worlds.
The power of myth lies in its ability to give meaning to the meaningless, to order the chaotic.
The world is not given, but made, and remade, through human action and interaction.
The act of listening is a form of empathy, a way of entering into the experience of another.
The commodity form is a form of enchantment, a way of obscuring the social relations of production.
The anthropologist is a storyteller, a weaver of narratives.
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
The power of ritual lies in its ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
The anthropologist is a witness, a recorder of human experience.
The world is full of echoes, of repetitions, of things that come back to haunt us.
The act of naming is an act of power, a way of bringing things into being.
The commodity is a fetish, an object imbued with magical powers.
Contemporaries of Michael Taussig
Other Anthropologys born within 50 years of Michael Taussig (1940).