World. An anthropological examination (Part 1)

Anthropologists often take recourse to the word “world” as if its meaning were selfevident,

but the word remains highly ambivalent, often extending its meaning in a

perilously polysemic fashion. So, the question of “what world are we engaging?” imposes

itself, particularly as it leads to another important question: are there “worlds”? This latter

question raises some of the fundamental perplexities that have haunted anthropological

theory throughout the past century. In this series of two articles, I propose to abandon the

established dichotomy between rather crude forms of realism and equally crude forms of

semiotic idealism. I sustain that we cannot discuss world without considering for whom,

but that this is fully compatible with single-world ontology if we take into account the role

of personhood in the human condition. This first article argues for a single-world ontology

and for the centrality of personhood. It explores the implications of a form of minimal

realism that best suits the ethnographic gesture, while the second article responds to the

question of world-forming, the matter of worldview.