Bodies and Worlds Alive: an Outline of Phenomenology in Anthropology
Bodies and Worlds Alive: an Outline of Phenomenology in Anthropology

Summary/Abstract: The article begins with a short introduction to phenomenology with an emphasis on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whose ideas have had a great impact on cultural anthropology since the 1980s, especially through notions like ‘embodiment’ and ‘radical empiricism’. The article will proceed to outline main trends in phenomenological anthropology as well as its precursors. It then dedicates itself to some of the most prominent issues in anthropology in which phenomenology is particularly involved such as: ‘bracketing’, ‘betweenness’, ‘mind-body dualism’ and ‘embodiment’. Alongside a summary of phenomenology’s contribution to anthropology, the conclusions will address some of the critiques that are often directed at phenomenology.

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