I Swear I Saw This

“That Taussig chooses to write this book as a series of story-like musings rather than a strict theoretical argument makes for fascinating reading....He talks about drug smuggling and murderous police in Colombia, and offers anecdotes from the history of anthropology, yagé-induced hallucinations, and more. We see how for Taussig, stories prompt questions and questions in turn prompt more stories.”

“There are two types of anthropologists: One models himself on the scientist, treating the world as his laboratory, people as his raw data ….The other kind of anthropologist is more like a religious initiate, participating fully in the culture in which he is placed and intimating that he is then the possessor of some secret knowledge….It is this latter tradition of which Michael Taussig, an eminent professor at Columbia University, is one of the greatest exponents. The New York Times has called his work ‘gonzo anthropology.’ He has drunk hallucinatory yagé on the sandy banks of the Putumayo River. He’s cured the sick with the aid of spirits. He’s escaped from guerrillas in a dugout canoe at dawn. Above all, he is interested in individual stories and experiences, unique tales that cannot be reduced to rational explanation or bland report….At the center of Taussig’s method is the anthropologist’s desire to bear witness to what he cannot understand. Meditating on his sketch and notes, Taussig imbues the event with the magical aura of a collector’s gem. Was it chance or fate that brought them together in that tunnel? And was it chance or fate that transfigured the relatively common scene into something haunting and extraordinary?”

“This work is both a highly original contribution to the voluminous literature on ethnographic fieldwork and an interesting addition to the distinctive oeuvre of Michael Taussig, one of the most accomplished writers that anthropology has produced….What follows is a mixture of the visual and the visionary. For anthropologists, field notes have long been the private archive of research, but more so, they have been a kind of licensed literary form, with which this short compelling work experiments. Summing Up: Essential.”