The knot and its process. El nudo y su proceso.

GAZTAÑAGA JULIETA

Allegra. A virtual laboratory of legal anthropology

ALLEGRALAB.NET

Lugar: Helsinki; Año: 2014

This short essay draws on the inspiring questions, aporias, conundrums, observations, remarks, comments, ironies, and especially the humorous notes delivered at the Anthropological Knots symposium organized by the Social and Cultural Anthropology Department at Helsinki, in association with HAU-N.E.T. While I?m departing from there, I would also like to take this opportunity to reflect upon certain threads that I believe could further those highlighted by speakers, commentators and the audience. I will try to do so by means of two distinctive pathways.First, I like to contribute and push further some of the ideas developed around the metaphor of anthropological knot(s). How? By considering some questions-knots that can potentially challenge certain pre-assumptions pertaining to the ways in which anthropology is entangled in the world in which it is practiced. I believe this could be summarised through the following questions: is it possible to focus on the relations between anthropology?s conceptual possibilities and epistemic practices ?namely anthropology?s intellectual and practical location in the world? from a processual perspective of its own knots? To what extent is this entanglement with the world?s possibilities, changes and transformations a ?total? endeavour ? of a interpersonal, social, moral, esthetic and productive nature? How does this imply the ubiquity of comparison and ethnographic fieldwork as more than mere techniques and methodological inputs, but conditions of conceptual rigor and attachment to the-world(s) we (all) belong to, dwell, transit, observe, occupy, imagine, desire, and so on?On the other hand, writing this piece in Spanish (my native language) is partially intended at challenging our theoretical and pre-theoretical commitments; in this case those related with the use of the English language as a sort of ontology of understanding ?which is not, of course, restricted to the academic context. This idiomatic decision is also a political statement: to use a language widely spread and spoken, rich and diverse, although severely attached to a fierce inequality worldwide. (A few slogans are sufficient to express this critical connotation: otro mundo es posible; ya basta; que se vayan todos?). And, of course, this choice is, at the same time, a gesture of apology from the author who admits being incapable of dealing with picturesque 
?and perhaps even poetic? argumentation in other languages (i.e. guess what? My English is awful! )All these issues are also connected with the anthropological aftermaths of seeking otherness through the lenses of the ?unresolved but wished to be so? universal/particular tension, instead of focusing on the changing dynamics and processes of production of the various tensions that nurture it. Nevertheless, and although nostalgic, this anthropological token also has a cheerful side (although perennially problematic as well), beautifully described by Levi Strauss in Tristes Tropiques. I am referring to placing the ?origins? of the anthropological gnoseology within ?We/Them? dynamics of relationships, in-process, and by a restless attitude of creative-curiosity? of course, not only for it encourages imagination but mainly for it leads dialectically to critical questioning.