Horizoning in the face of the unimaginable: Ethnographies of shifting hermeneutics

Abstract (English)

This panel takes a closer look at practices of sense-making, contextualizing, realizing, and expressing individual and collective selves in face of experiences of oppression, violent conflict, and disaster. Our proposition is to think of these processes as horizoning in the face of the unimaginable and unpredictable. We invite presenters to ethnographically explore, how horizons – moral, affective and aesthetical – persist and change in moments of loss and existential vulnerability, shaping the actions, imaginations and knowledge perspectives of individuals and communities, and how they are mobilized. We loosely define our field of interest as ethnographies of (shifting) hermeneutics and suggest understanding different practices of horizoning as existential and affect-producing activities.

The horizon holds a strong metaphorical meaning in philosophical traditions across the globe (cf. Arab philosophical debates of أفق (ufuq)). Horizons evoke a sense of continuity and stability while bearing the perspective of alterations. The term often refers to the human capacity to learn, transcend previous states of mind, incorporate new ideas, including metaphysical and spiritual insights, new knowledge, and otherness. The notion of horizoning specifically draws on the work of Vincento Crapanzano (2004), who suggests that it is through shifting and historically grown and psychologically rooted imaginative horizons that our world and lives are imbued with aesthetical, affective and moral meaning. It further pursues the questions of Adriana Petryna (2022) to whom one of the most significant global tasks is horizon work, namely re-establishing the shattered relation between human expectations and environmental realities. It further is inspired by Hans-Georg Gadamer’s understanding of hermeneutics that rests on the premise that human understanding emerges dialogically during a fusion of different horizons (Horizontverschmelzung). Horizon work is also embedded in Schiocchet’s (2021) concept of “subjunctive spaces” as shared nexuses of conditionality and possibility, hope and desire, mediating between individuals and groups, mingling different modes of time, and ideal and empirical conceptions of the self. This way, the panel stands in the tradition of a theory of practice (Bourdieu 1977), in its attentiveness to the dynamic relationship between everyday practices and social imaginaries.

We especially welcome contributions aiming to discuss horizoning expressions ethnographically: Which resources, forms of capital, skills, techniques, are involved in horizoning? How do pedagogies, (in)visible hauntings, healing processes, (self) discipline, aesthetics, longing and desire affect horizoning? What role do art, creativity, archivisation, and research play in those processes? And why do some horizons persist while others don‘t?