Ethnographic Incorporation: Research, Mediunity, and (Re-)flexible(-ive) Ontology

The article argues that social scientists often treat mediumship inconsistently, viewing it as a phenomenon of people who "believe in spirits" rather than as a potential feature of the ethnographer's own experience. The author recounts a fieldwork event among daimistas in the late 1980s, during which they incorporated an entity. This experience led the author to develop and inhabit what they call a "(re-)flexible(-ive) ontology." The article explores the analogy between ethnographer and medium, addressing issues raised by the anthropologist's "formation" and the experience of "ethnographic incorporation."

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Abstract

Abstract Reflections on mediunship in the social sciences have often been constructed inconsistently. It seems that this inconsistency is linked to an epistemo-methodological conviction, namely, that mediumship is a “phenomenon” of the “other”, of the one who “believes in spirits”. In fieldwork on spiritualists collectivites it is not rare to came across a statement that argues that an ethnographer is also a medium, whether he wants or admits to be or not. An unwillingness to accept this theo-cosmological principle is often motivated by the implications of peer prestige. The article analytically tries to address an event that occurred in a fieldwork among daimistas in the late 1980s, when I incorporated an entity. The purpose of the article, therefore, is to explore the analogy “medium-ethnographer”, particularly by addressing issues raised by a critical allusion to anthropologist “formation” and the experience of “ethnographic incorporation”. From the experience, I gradually elaborated and began to live with what I would call a (re-)flexible(-ive) ontology.