“Animism” Revisited

1999/02/01 by Nurit Bird‐David · 1,058 citations
Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Animism #Anthropology #Context (archaeology) #Environmental Philosophy and Ethics #Epistemology #Ethnography #Geographies of human-animal interactions #Geography #Personhood #Philosophy #Religion, Ecology, and Ethics #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1086/200061

published in Current Anthropology 40(S1), S67-S91 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 1999/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

“Animism” is projected in the literature as simple religion and a failed epistemology, to a large extent because it has hitherto been viewed from modernist perspectives. In this paper previous theories, from classical to recent, are critiqued. An ethnographic example of a hunter‐gatherer people is given to explore how animistic ideas operate within the context of social practices, with attention to local constructions of a relational personhood and to its relationship with ecological perceptions of the environment. A reformulation of their animism as a relational epistemology is offered.

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