Alessando Duranti

@article{Duranti2017,
title = {Action and Its Parts},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.14318/hau7.2.034},
issn = {2049-1115 (Online)},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-11-01},
journal = {HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory},
volume = {7},
number = {2},
pages = {427-435},
abstract = {Comment on Enfield, N. J. and Jack Sidnell. 2017. \emph{The Concept of Action}. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.},
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@article{Duranti2017b,
title = {In and Out of Intersubjective Attunement},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.14318/hau7.2.040},
issn = {2049-1115 (Online)},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-11-01},
journal = {HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory},
volume = {7},
number = {2},
pages = {475–483},
abstract = {Response to comments on Duranti, Alessandro. 2015. \emph{The Anthropology of Intentions: Language in A World of Others.} Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.},
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@article{Duranti2015,
title = {The Anthropology of Intentions: Language in a World of Others},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1017/CBO9781139207706},
isbn = {9781107652033},
year = {2015},
date = {2015-01-01},
journal = {Cambridge University Press},
abstract = {How and to what extent do people take into account the intentions of others? Alessandro Duranti sets out to answer this question, showing that the role of intentions in human interaction is variable across cultures and contexts. Through careful analysis of data collected over three decades in US and Pacific societies, Duranti demonstrates that, in some communities, social actors avoid intentional discourse, focusing on the consequences of actions rather than on their alleged original goals. In other cases, he argues, people do speculate about their own intentions or guess the intentions of others, including in some societies where it was previously assumed they avoid doing so. To account for such variation, Duranti proposes an 'intentional continuum', a concept that draws from phenomenology and the detailed analysis of face-to-face interaction. A combination of new essays and classic re-evaluations, the book draws together findings from anthropology, linguistics and philosophy to offer a penetrating account of the role of intentions in defining human action.},
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@article{Duranti2014,
title = {Attention, Ritual Glitches, and Attentional Pull: The President and the Queen},
author = {C. Jason Throop and Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1007/s11097-014-9397-4},
issn = {1568-7759},
year = {2014},
date = {2014-11-05},
issuetitle = { Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 14(4)},
journal = {Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences},
series = {UCLA Previously Published Works},
abstract = {This article proposes an analysis of a ritual glitch and resulting “misfire” from the standpoint of a phenomenologically informed anthropology of human interaction. Through articulating a synthesis of some of Husserl‘s insights on attention and affection with concepts and methods developed by anthropologists and other students of human interaction, a case is made for the importance of understanding the social organization of attention in ritual encounters. An analysis of a failed toast during President Obama’s 2011 State Visit to the United Kingdom is used to illustrate how attention is directed toward certain participants, actions, and objects – as opposed to others. Affect-loaded empathic reactions are explained by the protracted temporal unfolding of an action whose successful conclusion – or “repair” - is ostensively and publicly delayed},
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@article{Duranti2013c,
title = {On the future of anthropology: Fundraising, the job market and the corporate turn},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1177/1463499613492089},
year = {2013},
date = {2013-09-05},
journal = {Anthropological Theory},
volume = {13(3)},
pages = {201-221},
abstract = {Building on the author’s participant observation in academic leadership roles over the
last two decades, this article reviews four areas of engagement for anthropology within
the larger context of US higher education: a) fundraising; b) training and placing of
students; c) the so-called ‘corporate turn’ and its alleged effects on current evaluation
measures; and d) the popularity of anthropology among college students in the context
of a highly self-critical discourse among professional anthropologists and a challenging
academic job market. On the basis of the data presented, I argue that (1) fundraising
activities are nothing new in anthropology and might play a role in continuing to support
a holistic view of anthropology, (2) programs in anthropology should embrace rather
than be skeptical of the potential for the employment of anthropologists in other fields
or non-academic professions, (3) being students of society, anthropologists should be
more engaged in the running of the university including its financial aspects and should
teach their students to be more entrepreneurial, and (4) the applied and public aspects
of anthropological research should be foregrounded and rewarded.},
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@article{Duranti2010,
title = {Husserl, intersubjectivity and anthropology},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1177/1463499610370517},
year = {2010},
date = {2010-01-01},
journal = {Anthropological Theory},
volume = {Vol 10(1)},
pages = {1–20},
abstract = {In this article, the notion of intersubjectivity is re-examined by going back to its original formulation by the philosopher Edmund Husserl at the beginning of the 20th century. On the basis of a careful reading of Husserl’s books and lecture notes, four claims are put forward that help clarify in what sense intersubjectivity is a broader and more fundamental notion than currently assumed in the social sciences. In particular, it is argued that for Husserl intersubjectivity is more than shared or mutual understanding and is closer to the notion of the possibility of being in the place where the Other is. Furthermore, intersubjectivity is the source of objectivity and not always or necessarily something to be achieved or negotiated through verbal communication or other means. In fact, in its most basic sense, Husserlian intersubjectivity includes a mode of participation in the natural and material world that does not even require an immediately perceivable human presence. Following this discussion, it is suggested that the full range of meanings of intersubjectivity found in Husserl’s writings can be used as the basis for a study of the human condition that has a chance to unite all subfields of anthropology as practiced in the US. With this goal in mind, six related but distinct domains of intersubjectivity are proposed.},
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@article{Duranti2009b,
title = {The Relevance of Husserl’s Theory to Language Socialization},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = { 10.1111/j.1548-1395.2009.01031.x.},
issn = {1055-1360},
year = {2009},
date = {2009-11-17},
journal = {Journal of Linguistic Anthropology},
volume = {19(2)},
pages = {205-226},
abstract = {This article suggests that the theory of language socialization could benefit from adopting some key concepts originally introduced by the philosopher Edmund Husserl in the first part of the twentieth century. In particular, it focuses on Husserl’s notion of “(phenomenological) modification,” to be understood as a change in “the natural attitude” that humans have toward the phenomenal world, their own actions included. After providing examples of different kinds of modifications in interpreting language and listening to music, Husserl’s notion of “theoretical attitude” (a modification of “the natural attitude”) is introduced and shown to be common in adult conversations as well as in interactions between adults and young children. A reanalysis of an exchange previously examined by Platt (1986) between a Samoan mother and her son is provided to show the benefits of an integration of phenomenological and interactional perspectives on adult-child discourse. Finally, it is suggested that the failure sometimes experienced by children and adults to adopt new ways of being may be due to the accumulated effects of modifications experienced earlier in life which make it difficult if not impossible to retrieve earlier, premodificational ways of being.},
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@article{Duranti2008,
title = {Further Reflections on Reading Other Minds},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1353/anq.0.0002},
issn = {1534-1518},
year = {2008},
date = {2008-03-01},
journal = {Anthropological Quarterly},
volume = {81},
number = {2},
pages = {483-494},
edition = {Spring 2008},
abstract = {The articles in this special collection give us an opportunity to further reflect on a central concern for any discipline dedicated to the study of human action, namely, the role that introspection plays in giving us insights into what people think, feel, and want. The starting point of this discussion is the observation that members of a number of Pacific societies have been said to claim—or to imply through their behavior—that it is impossible to know what goes on in another person's mind. This claim, called the "doctrine of the opacity of other minds" by the editors (hereafter "opacity doctrine"), is often extended to the self, as when native consultants refuse to provide motivations for their own actions or resist any kind of intentional reading of what they have just done. In treating this type of attitude as a puzzle that needs our empirical and theoretical attention, the authors in this collection, like those of us who were dealing with it some twenty plus years ago, are making a set of analytical choices based on assumptions that should be re-examined. In the following comments I review some potential problems that emerge in the arguments presented in this collection and also suggest some ways of integrating philosophical and anthropological perspectives that could help develop more precise research tools and hypotheses about the opacity doctrine. A careful reading of the articles in this collection shows that the opacity doctrine has been dealt with on two main levels, observational and explanatory, each of which relies on a different order of generalizations and implies different kinds of analytical categories and types of argumentation. The first level—which we might call "observational"—draws from fieldwork situations in which ethnographers try to get their consultants, field assistants, hosts, and friends to tell them about other members' actions, motivations, explanations, and emotions. These attempts, as we know from the ethnographic literature, which include the articles in this collection, are sometimes met with surprise, suspicion, or flat rejection, as in "How would I know?" or "Why should I know?" Such responses are subsequently interpreted as consistent with a particular "local" theory of interpretation, to be distinguished from the ethnographer's. This move transforms the earlier "observational" level into a first stage "explanatory" level. With the confidence that comes with labeling, ethnographers could begin to search for more evidence to support their hypothesis about the local theory. At this point ethnographers also face the question of whether they themselves are creating the problem, and the theory, by asking certain kinds of questions (Briggs 1984). Could it be that a different way of asking about introspection would bring about a different kind of answer? This line of inquiry, as far as I know, has never been fully developed, even though the next step could be seen in part as a way of addressing this issue. Armed with the hypothesis that the natives have a way of thinking about what we can know about others that is different from what is usually assumed in western theories of meaning, ethnographers are able to search for naturally occurring situations in which the same reluctance to read other minds might manifest itself spontaneously, that is, without any outsider's prompting. One important source of evidence for this line of investigation is provided by language socialization studies, as shown by Bambi Schiefflin in this volume and elsewhere (Schieffelin 1990:72–3). The fact that Bosavi adults do not try to guess what an infant is trying to say—Bosavi, like Samoans (Ochs 1982), do not "expand" children's elliptical utterances—shows that the opacity doctrine works across a number of activities and contexts. Another opportunity to look for further evidence of the local theory is presented through inter-cultural contact situations and the introduction of new activities that typically accompany contact. For example, it makes sense to hypothesize that the opacity doctrine would inhibit or in some way affect participation in introduced Christian practices such as confession, which relies on the assumption of the existence of an inner self that is accessible to introspection (Cary 2000).},
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@article{Duranti2006,
title = {Transcripts, Like Shadows on a Wall},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1207/s15327884mca1304_3},
year = {2006},
date = {2006-12-01},
journal = {Mind, Culture and Activity},
volume = {13},
number = {4},
pages = {301-310},
abstract = {Over the last 50 years the process of producing transcripts of all kinds of interactions has become an important practice for researchers in a wide range of disciplines. Only rarely, however, has transcription been analyzed as a cultural practice. It is here argued that it is precisely the lack of understanding of what is involved in transcribing that has produced a number of epistemological problems, including the tendency to become either virtual-realists or hypercontextualists. By proposing a new interpretation of Plato's famous story of the prisoners in the cave who could only see the shadows of what was happening outside, this article examines the advantages of the selective nature of transcription, unveils some of the cognitive and affective implications of engaging in transcription, and proposes a complementary approach to transcription, in which transcripts are evaluated with respect to what they can (or cannot) reveal within a particular domain of inquiry.},
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@article{Keating2006,
title = {Honorific Resources for the Construction of Hierarchy in Samoan and Pohnpeian},
author = {Elizabeth Keating and Alessandro Duranti},
year = {2006},
date = {2006-06-02},
journal = {The Journal of Polynesian Society},
volume = {115},
number = {2},
pages = {145-172},
publisher = {The Polynesian Society},
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@article{Duranti2005,
title = {Theories and models of language, interaction and culture},
author = {Anjali Browning and Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1177/1461445605054399},
year = {2005},
date = {2005-10-01},
journal = {A Special Issue of Discourse Studies},
volume = {7},
pages = {403-407},
publisher = {Sage Publications},
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@article{Duranti1999,
title = { Language Matters in Anthropology: A Lexicon for the New Millennium},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
year = {1999},
date = {1999-01-01},
journal = {Journal of Linguistic Anthropology},
volume = {Vol. 9},
pages = {(1-2)},
abstract = {The study of language as culture in U.S. anthropology is a set of distinct and often not fully compatible practices that can be made sense of through the identification of three historically related paradigms. Whereas the first paradigm, initiated by Boas, was mostly devoted to documentation, grammatical description, and classification (especially of North American indigenous languages) and focused on linguistic relativity, the second paradigm, developed in the 1960s, took advantage of new recording technology and new theoretical insights to examine language use in context, introducing new units of analysis such as the speech event. Although it was meant to be part of anthropology at large, it marked an intellectual separation from the rest of anthropology. The third paradigm, with its focus on identity formation, narrativity, and ideology, constitutes a new attempt to connect with the rest of anthropology by extending linguistic methods to the study of issues previously identified in other (sub)fields. Although each new paradigm has reduced the influence and appeal of the preceding one, all three paradigms persist today, and confrontation of their differences is in the best interest of the discipline.},
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@article{Duranti1988,
title = {Intentions, Language, and Social Action in a Samoan Context},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1016/0378-2166(88)90017-3},
issn = {0378-2166},
year = {1988},
date = {1988-02-01},
journal = {Journal of Pragmatics},
volume = {12},
pages = {13-33},
abstract = {The universal validity of the personalist view of meaning as owned by the individual speaker and exclusively defined by his intentions is here questioned on the basis of an analysis of spontaneous verbal interaction in a politico-judiciary arena in a traditional village in Western Samoa. After relating the Samoan practice of language understanding to the Samoan notions of self and task, it is suggested that the Samoans' use of language in social interaction is more easily understood on the basis of a dialogical, interpretive, and socio-historically oriented theory of meaning than on the basis of a ‘rationalistic’ view in which the individual is the sole originator of knowledge and evidence.},
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@article{Duranti1981,
title = {Speechmaking and the Organization of Discourse in a Samoan Fono},
author = {Alessandro Duranti},
doi = {10.1017/S0047404500009568},
isbn = {085883-2488},
year = {1981},
date = {1981-01-01},
journal = {Journal of the Polynesian Society},
volume = {90},
number = {3},
pages = {357-400},
abstract = {This paper addresses the relevance of a functional approach to the study of speech genres. The range of variation found in spontaneous performances of a traditional genre of Samoan speechmaking (lāuga) can be explained and partly predicted by referring to the social and cultural context of speaking. Particular features of variation are attributed to the following factors: (1) the purposes of the social events, (2) the temporal setting of its performance, (3) the range and social identities of the participants, and (4) the weight given to performance as a key for delivering and interpreting speechmaking. (Oratory, ethnography of communication, cross-contextual variation, performance, Samoan language and culture.)},
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