Albert Piette chose to "note", regretting that he was not an artist who could express "time". As an anthropologist, he has transformed his fear of time into acts of noting that have become central to his own work. His father, his daughters’ childhoods, the moments of a day and his experience of a blocked nose are "noted". The author’s main aim is to show how, on the basis of such daily notes on his own life, it is possible to carry out anthropology. In so doing, he debates with artists, philosophers and anthropologists. Above all, he offers a radically different perspective on anthropology as a theoretical reflection on the "resistance" of being – the absolute being – from which he draws out the elementary laws of functioning. The book concludes with proposals for an ethics of noting as an antidote to violence.

This book deals with anthropological ideas, which it confronts with what seems to be a difficulty in anthropology: the human being, each singular human being, taken in themselves. Following this line of reading, the authors take us from Benedict to Radcliffe-Brown or Strathern. They focus particularly on contemporary theories of ecological, psychological, phenomenological and existential anthropology. It is this last direction that the authors wish to emphasise, devoting a final chapter to what would be an anthropology of the human being. Radically critical of the relationalism and the tyranny of context in anthropological theories, this book combining text and drawings is a necessary document for researchers and students, as well as for all those interested in understanding the singularity of each being. Perhaps, after this book, readers will no longer consider anthropology in the same manner…

This book includes the English and French versions of a short text that shows how certain works of art can help us to conceive of an anthropology of the human being, by creating new topics, broadening perception and proposing concepts. The author moves from the reflections of Giacometti to the poetry of Pizarnik, from a drawing by Duchamp to Rilke’s ‘advice’ to a young anthropologist. Looking, learning to look, is the common thread.

« Que se passe-t-il dans une fête ? » C'est à cette question qu’Albert Piette s’est attelé à répondre dans cet ouvrage publié une première fois en 1988, et réédité aujourd’hui, qui pose les bases des théories que l’anthropologue a développées par la suite, tant sur le phénomène rituel, le fait religieux, l’observation des détails, le mode mineur de la réalité que sur l’être humain en général. À partir d’un ensemble comparé de six fêtes en Wallonie – carnavals, ducasses ou fêtes politiques –, l’idée est de construire une anthropologie de la fête. Que l’on regarde les peintures de Bruegel ou de Rubens : le tournoiement des couples dansant, le bariolage des couleurs et l’enchevêtrement des formes selon un rythme musical produisent cet effet d’ondoiement caractéristique de la festivité. Comment donc décrire et analyser la réalité mouvementée et ambivalente de la fête ? Albert Piette propose ici une théorie centrée sur les notions de jeu et d’intervalle. L’espace-temps de la fête permet des comportements qui, sans être semblables à ceux du quotidien, ne constituent pas pour autant une rupture avec ceux-ci. La fête rend ainsi compatibles l’hypersérieux et le dérisoire le plus total.

A partir d'un dessin de Marcel Duchamp représentant un cycliste, Albert Piette conduit une réflexion sur le mouvement en cycles, les roues, les pédales, pour penser une anthropologie de l'être replié sur lui-même. En même temps que l'auteur avoue son engouement pour le cyclisme, il ne dissimule pas son scepticisme à l'égard des pensées des arrachements, des flux et des entremêlements. En dialogue avec des philosophes et des anthropologues, ce livre définit une observation de l'être humain. Pour cela, il estime nécessaire de revenir au champ lexical du contour, de la consistance, de la stabilité, et pourquoi pas de la substance. Pratiquée radicalement, une telle observation implique une anthropologie triste. A partir de l'enchaînement chaotique des événements d'une vie, de l'individu aux groupes sociaux, la postface montre comment ergodicité de l'espace-temps et attracteurs étranges de la théorie du chaos déterministe peuvent contribuer à l'anthropologie triste de l'être cycliste.

Anthropologie existentiale, autographie et entité humaine s’intéresse à l’écriture de soi et sur soi. Elle est appelée « autographie ». L’auteur qui a fait de son existence son propre « terrain » propose différentes expérimentations autographiques. Il expose les principes fondamentaux de l’autographie, pertinents pour l’anthropologue, mais également pour quiconque voudrait la pratiquer. En anthropologie, l’observation et la description de soi ne peuvent se suffire à elles-mêmes. L’enjeu n’est pas une connaissance de soi, ni des situations ou des contextes sociaux. En ce sens, l’autographie est différente des autobiographies et des auto-ethnographies. Sa visée ultime est une compréhension de l’être humain en tant qu’entité. L’autographie est un élément clé de l’anthropologie existentiale dont l’« objet » est ainsi précisé. Les principes méthodologiques et les enjeux théoriques sont sans cesse présents dans cet ouvrage qui fait dialoguer des écrivains et des anthropologues, en particulier Montaigne, Rousseau, Pessoa, Leiris et Lévi-Strauss.

« Religion » est un grand mot et sa portée très générale masque tout un ensemble d’infimes variations, de subtilités et de modes de présence que l’on saisit mieux en suivant au plus près l’activité religieuse en train de se faire : celle qui au quotidien tisse les liens entre les fidèles catholiques, l’Église et Dieu, cet être invisible que l’activité de chacun contribue à rendre présent, donc observable. C’est ce qu’entreprend dans ce livre Albert Piette, en prenant pour terrain d’observation les réunions, les célébrations, les conversations et toutes les relations qui font la vie d’un diocèse catholique de France. La première édition de ce livre, en 1999, a d’emblée marqué les sciences sociales des religions par son invitation à « observer les détails », par sa pratique de l’immersion ethnographique appliquée au catholicisme français et par le déplacement théorique que propose Albert Piette, en restituant les mouvements presque imperceptibles de l’activité religieuse ordinaire.

L'importance accordée à l'observation de l'action est une tendance marquante des sciences sociales contemporaines. Mais comment observe-t-on ? Que capte l'oeil du sociologue ou de l'anthropologue quand il observe ? En réalité, le regard fait le partage entre ce qui est pertinent et ce qui ne l'est pas ou l'est moins, entre le nécessaire et l'accessoire. Toute observation comporte ainsi un reste, qui mérite cependant que l'on s'y arrête. Dans ce livre publié pour la première fois en 1996 et devenu un classique, Albert Piette interroge les différentes traditions sociologiques ou ethnologiques afin de dégager le principe de pertinence que chacune d'elles met en oeuvre pour séparer l'essentiel du détail. Développant une approche originale, il défend l'idée selon laquelle la réalité sociale se construit dans la tension, variable selon chaque situation et chaque acteur, entre le primordial et le superflu. Ce sont ces écarts, ces restes, qui contribuent à définir les individus dans ce qu'ils ont de proprement humain.

It may seem obvious that the human being has always been present in anthropology. This book, however, reveals that he has never really been a part of it. Theoretical Anthropology or How to Observe a Human Being establishes the foundations and conditions, both theoretical and methodological, which make it possible to consider the human being as a topic of observation and analysis, for himself as an entity, and not in the perspective of understanding social and cultural phenomena. In debate with both anthropologists and philosophers, this book describes and analyzes the human being as a volume. To this end, a specific lexicon is built around the notions of volume, volumography and volumology. These notions are further illustrated and enriched by several drawings.

L’être humain semble constamment présent en anthropologie. Cependant, cet ouvrage révèle qu’il n’en a jamais vraiment fait partie. Anthropologie théorique ou comment regarder un être humain établit les fondements ou conditions, aussi bien théoriques que méthodologiques, qui permettent de représenter l’être humain comme thème d’observation et d’analyse, et non en vue de comprendre des phénomènes sociaux et culturels. En débat avec des anthropologues et des philosophes, cet ouvrage décrit et analyse ce qu’est un être humain regardé en volume. À cet effet, un lexique personnalisé est utilisé autour des notions de volume, de volumographie et de volumologie. La présence de dessins vient enrichir ces notions.

Résumé éditeur : "Ce livre est le fruit d’une expérience unique : l’auteur a été filmé par Catherine Beaugrand et Samuel Dématraz, sans interruption, pendant 12 heures. Il présente la description aussi précise que possible de tous les instants privés et publics, sans aucune coupure, du petit déjeuner au dîner, en passant par les trajets en RER, les conversations avec des collègues, les heures d’enseignements et les moments vides. Ces descriptions sont suivies par des commentaires sur le volume humain, ses modes de présence, ses actes, son style, ses détails, ses changements et sa continuité au fil de la journée. L’auteur propose des concepts et des réflexions sur ce qui pourrait constituer l’anthropologie comme science de l’homme. C’est comme s’il y avait deux disponibilités, constate Albert Piette, l’unité humaine sans discipline, et l’anthropologie, sans objet qui lui soit propre, une sorte de mot fourre-tout ou synonyme de sociologie. En postambule du livre, l’auteur s’interroge sur ce que serait les fondements de l’anthropologie. Il convoque alors, non plus Hérodote, mais Aristote et, au fondement métaphysique, il ajoute un fondement artistique, en commentant Rilke sous forme de conseils à un jeune anthropologue. Ainsi au fil des pages se précisent les principes d’une telle science de l’homme que l’auteur ne veut pas séparer d’une éthique, une « éthique du volume » selon ses mots, dans laquelle il s’interroge sur ce qui existe et sur ce qui n’existe pas : ce qui lui permet d’attribuer une valeur centrale à l’être humain et à chaque singulier."

Avec Le livre de l'intranquillité de Fernando Pessoa, la littérature élève à un niveau très rare ce qui est possible d'une sensibilité et d'une lucidité humaine. Albert Piette mélange l'écriture de Pessoa, des phrases majeures qu'il retient du Livre et ses propres réflexions sur l'anthropologie et la tâche de l'anthropologue. Celui-ci est présenté comme un être à part, qui ne ressemble pas à ce que nous savons des sociologues ou des ethnologues. Qu'est-ce que l'Anthropologue regarde ? Comment regarde-t-il ? Qu'est-ce qu'il sait ? Qu'est-ce qu'il sent ou ressent ? Comment vit-il lui-même ? Quel pourrait être son rôle pédagogique ? À l'horizon, en dialogue constant avec Pessoa, se profile un nouveau « métier », ou plus encore un « destin »? : dire la réalité

This volume is the first handbook to explore existentialism as epistemology and method. Transdisciplinary in scope, it considers the nature of human subjectivity and how human experience ought to be studied, examining the connections that exist between the individual’s imagining of the world and their everyday practice within it. With attention to the question of whether humans are ultimately alone in their self-knowledge or whether what they know of themselves is constructed in common with others, it enables the reader to recognize core questions that frame the methods and orientation of an existential inquiry. In addition to historical exposition, it offers a variety of chapters from around the world that explore the diverse global spaces for, and different types of, existential focus and discussion, thus questioning the view that the existential "problem" may be singularly a matter for the post-enlightenment West. The fullest and most comprehensive survey to date of what human beings can and should make of themselves, The Routledge International Handbook of Existential Human Science will appeal to scholars across the humanities and social sciences with interests in anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and research methods.

À quoi ressemble l’être humain que Platon, Avicenne, Darwin ou Beauvoir décrivent, expliquent et théorisent? Qu’est-ce que la philosophie ou le projet scientifique de chacun de ces auteurs nous disent sur l’humain? C’est la diversité des figures de l’être humain que ce Dictionnaire des anthropologies donne à voir. Constitué de plus de cent articles écrits par des spécialistes reconnus, il expose les conceptions de l’être humain propres à des auteurs issus de diverses disciplines: philosophie, psychologie, anthropologie, sociologie, préhistoire ou encore biologie.

Dictionnaire de l'humain. Un dictionnaire pour réveiller le thème de l'humain, pour lui faire tenir ses promesses scientifiques, pour faire jaillir sa richesse philosophique. Art, divin, guerre, hominidé, langage, sédentarisation, singe, volonté… : des philosophes, des psychologues, des sociologues...ont ainsi saisi plus de soixante-dix entrées...

Un dictionnaire pour réveiller le thème de l’humain, pour lui faire tenir ses promesses scientifiques, pour faire jaillir sa richesse philosophique. Ce dictionnaire aurait-il vu le jour sans le constat implicite d’une absence paradoxale de l’humain, dans un espace disciplinaire des sciences humaines et sociales, langues, littératures et humanités dont il est pourtant l’élément commun ? Un dictionnaire, c’est aussi une bonne occasion de faire dialoguer des idées. Art, divin, guerre, hominidé, langage, sédentarisation, singe, volonté... : des philosophes, des psychologues, des sociologues, des spécialistes de littérature ou des textes anciens, des anthropologues, des géographes, des historiens, des préhistoriens, des éthologues ont ainsi saisi plus de soixante-dix entrées, cherchant ce qu’il en est de la différence anthropologique, ce qui ou ce que fait l’humain, quelles significations s’attachent à la dimension de l’humain. Puisse la traversée des perspectives proposées faire bouger les lecteurs, inviter à la vigilance et à la curiosité, communiquer l’envie de l’enquête et du débat.

Anthropology and ethnography are inseparable in the history of the social sciences, with one claiming the other as its methodological characteristic, which is nonetheless very much in evidence in many other disciplines. This pairing directs anthropology towards the study of cultures, groups, interactions, situations and events. With such primacy given to social relations, the difference between sociology and anthropology is greatly blurred. What would anthropology be if it were no longer social and cultural? It could discard its ‘double’ and look for other methods, to change its subject matter, and to take an interest in the singularity of each being. This is the proposal of this article. If this happened, then anthropology would be radically different from sociology.

Piette belongs to the first generation of anthropologists who, in dialogue with the work of Bruno Latour, renewed the gaze on the social by extending it to beings – gods, plants or animals – that had previously remained outside the scope of ethnographic observation. Although he does not identify with the "ontological turn", his research inevitably bears a resemblance to it, both in its Latourian inspirations and in its interest in non-humans. Over the years, Piette has mapped out an original research program for anthropology, centered on human beings rather than social and cultural relations and contexts, which he has proposed to call "existential anthropology". He sees this as an ethical gesture that involves paying attention to singularities, substances and details. In this interview, he looks back on his career and his scientific project, and explains what differentiates his thinking from that of the anthropologists associated with the "ontological turn", whose essentialization of cultural differences he deplores, as well as their greater attention to relational patterns than to beings themselves, and they way they blur the line between the existent and the non-existent.

In this short account the authors present the filmic experiment they carried out in 2016: it was an uninterrupted film lasting for 11 hours 38 minutes, unedited and accessible in its entirety. Of the two authors, one was the filmer and the other was filmed. They use the notion of extraction to understand the whole process: i.e. the film itself, the decoding of the images, and the text description. The aim is to present the human being as a unit extracted—what they call a "volume of being"—from its contexts and situations in order to be considered in itself.

In this paper, the question is this one: how do we describe a human being? It starts from the assumption that no discipline is really concerned with this question and that it is up to existential anthropology to deal with it. On the one hand, the paper calls for a method: the continuous film focused on an individual, and the most accurate description of this continuity. On the other hand, it reinforces its epistemological choice from the technique of sculpture in the round used by Rodin for The Age of Bronze. This sculpture, disconnected from the architectural space and from any context, is produced with a precise methodology that invites anyone to walk around the statue. The paper then refers to Decroux’s words on mime, establishing a link between the still images of the film (as a support for the description) and the mimes. The movement is thought as a transport of immobility and analysed in its capacity to be restrained rather than to dissolved or to flow.

This article is presented as a reading of Aristotle, in particular his Metaphysics. It is not a philosophical or philological commentary. Written by an anthropologist on the basis of Aristotle’s propositions, it is a plea for observation of the human being as a substantial unit. It proposes a radical change of scale for social and cultural anthropology, which is accustomed to observing social and cultural facts. By drawing on Aristotelian lexicon (substance, substratum, movement, predicate), the article attempts to clarify some possible points of observation of a human being in his singularity.

This article is presented as an essay seeking to construct an anthropological epistemology centered on an observation of the human being as entity. Critical of the history of anthropology as social and cultural, the author calls upon Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle. The Parmenidean notion of ball, folded on it, serves the author to consider that there is an entity to be observed. The allegory of the cave allows him to make an analogy between the gaze of the prisoners and those of the anthropologists. From Plato himself, the allegory is positively followed by an invitation to look at reality in its imperfections. Aristotle allows, especially from the notion of substance, a large set of empirical interrogations focused on a human being. The author sees in these different texts the foundations of an existential anthropology.

Critical of empirical forms of anthropology which have missed the singularity of beings, this paper defines the conditions for the observation of a human being. It would be then up to existential anthropology to do this work. To observe in detail a human being and to understand its existential grammar, the author considers necessary to return to the lexical field of the contour, the consistency, the stability. In a heuristic way, the paper solicits two unexpected supports: a drawing of Marcel Duchamp representing a cyclist and the notion of ball, proposed by Parmenides, that he associates to the one of volume of being. The paper then becomes a reflection on the movement in cycles to think an existential anthropology of the being human riveted to itself. The result is a move away from the foundations of existentialism, which, in different ways, value a being in the process of wrenching away from itself, in disequilibrium or as a "mystery" that cannot be looked at.

The authors offer an exercise in sculptural epistemology, by comparing various types of sculpture, giving a special place to The Age of Bronze, which Rodin saw as a specific experiment. In attempting this exercise, they present The Age of Bronze as a radical extraction, unlike reliefs and most sculptures in the round conceived in relation to a space. The notion of form, linked with that of volume of being, is used to clarify how Rodin’s sculpture corresponds to a human being. In such a sculpture in the round, the "supports" holding it upright are important. They help us think about how human beings "hold up", how they remain stable, despite their movement.

This article is an essay to apply the notion of volume of being to Fernando Pessoa. The volume of being refers to a human being. It is a container with its edge and a content made up of various components corresponding to the major themes of the human and social sciences: action, gesture, emotion, a thought, idea, memory, character, temperament, social or cultural markers. The article is presented as an exercise in anthropology, not literary criticism. It is based on fragments from The Book of Disquiet. Pessoa becomes a volume of being structured by a character or temperament, his memory, his feelings, his modes of consciousness. Rather than focusing on heteronymic multiplicity, the author insists on the intrastructuration of these elements within "the Volume-Pessoa" writing, inventing, remembering and comparing.

The author presents drawings made on the blackboard in front of his students at the university. This article aims to show the heuristic value of drawing in view of a human-oriented anthropology, i.e. focused on a human being, as detached as possible from other humans, situations or contexts. The drawings aim to illustrate the differences between ethnography and what he calls volumography, which focuses on the human being as a VoB. Throughout the article, the author discusses the notions of separation, perspective, and relation. In asking who is really describing this or that person in the spectrum of sciences, the author proposes that this task falls to existential anthropology.

In this article, the author attempts to retrace his various explorations of religious experience: rituals in Belgium, Catholic parishes in France, and his own experiences of belief. A common theme emerges: a negation that is found in the modes of human presence and that has various expressions. During rituals, it primarily concerns modes of detachment and distraction; during parish meetings, it involves modes of oscillation to deal with the obscurity of religious statements. It also includes a sort of reserve or hesitation, which the author has observed in his own belief. The article hypothesizes that these modes of hesitation originate from the very first act of believing, which may date back 100,000 years. Specifically, the author identifies that moment as the starting point of a mode of human presence that is characterized by presence-absence and indifference. A section of this article consists of a critical debate between the author’s own concepts and the ontological turn in anthropology.

In the form of a short essay, this paper questions the conditions for describing the human individual as an entity with its own contour. The author criticises the classical expressions of social anthropology, whose observations and descriptions tend to dilute the human being. The author turns to Parmenides, Aristotle, and the mathematician René Thom to find grounds for describing the human being as a singular entity. On the other hand, in the notion of a volume of being, he finds a decisive lever allowing him to synthesise his theoretical proposal.

Is there a real theoretical underpinning for visual anthropology? Or are we just borrowing theoretical concepts, as needed, from other disciplines? Here eight visual anthropologists offer their thoughts on this fundamental question succinctly.

In its anthropological translation, "volume" might refer to "volume of being". In this chapter we seek to understand volume as referring to being in itself, in its structuration, disconnected from its relationships with other beings. It presents itself as an alternative to the dominant relationalist approach in anthropology.

Existentialism is a well-known and historically delimited intellectual movement that includes a recognisable group of mid-twentieth-century figures, including Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, De Beauvoir, Fanon, Merleau-Ponty amongst others, drawing on nineteenth-century forerunners such as Kierkegaard, Emerson and Nietzsche. These are undoubtedly touchstones for thinking about what an existential enquiry consists in. For the editors of this volume, though, existential enquiry engages a theme that is narrower and more universal. This might be framed as a question: How to understand the irreducible living breathing human individual who is both a subject and an object in its own world, and whose life cannot be replaced with the lives of the other human beings around it? Existential enquiry begins, then, at the point when it reasserts a truth about life as any actually existing person experiences it; that, whatever shape subjectivity may take in its social networks, or in cultural discourse viewed from outside, each life is and remains distinct to itself, unique, finite and irreplaceable. If, then, existential enquiry is, or should be, a ‘tale of the richness of being versus abstraction’ what kind of language of observation and analysis does the enquirer need to tell it? The editors review the options.

This chapter offers a conceptual framework to help conceive of, look at and describe an existent, at a micrological level, both in his singularity of the moment and in his continuity in time. Faced with a set of formulations from certain philosophies of existence that refuse to look at an object in front of them, thinking of it as always ahead, as "wrenching away", open to the world and with others, the author uses the notion of "volume of being". The aim is to understand how an existent holds together and maintains himself, even though he is caught up in time and is in permanent relation with what surrounds him. The author proposes a set of "existentials" aiming to conceive of the volume of being as a separate entity that has a constant edge, a capacity for detachment, a consistency and a constancy. Thus, the chapter intends to restore elements that are usually set aside by philosophies of existence, and also by contemporary anthropologies.

How to describe a person in his non-interchangeable dimension? Which scientific discipline does this work? In order to answer these questions, this introduction, which prefers the notion of singularity to that of subjectivity, considers several points, by being critical of the social sciences in general. If an individual is presented as "turned towards" others and the world, and if the theoretical and methodological place given to others and contexts is significantly important, is there not a risk of moving the focus, thus "losing" this individual in his entirety and details of his singularity? Thus presented, he is a bit like coming out of himself. There is also the question of the importance to be given to the continuity of moments in such a description, whereas life stories or classical ethnography almost naturally favour a discontinuity of situations. Aware of the difficulty of such observations and descriptions, the conceptual and methodological answers are attempts, like asymptotes that it is important to always try and complete. At the same time, this introduction also questions some of the limits of existentialist thinking.

This chapter addresses three restrictions observed within the social sciences that prevent researchers from seeing human beings as such. It proposes an ontological argument in favor of following and analyzing human individuals. The chapter compares phenomenography with some phenomenological approaches in anthropology in order to insist on the methodological radicality of the former. As reflected in philosophy's classic debates, an anthropology that sets out to be anthropo-focused cannot separate an action, connection or experience from the person who performs and lives it. The chapter provides the methodological guidelines concerning, in particular, the possible ways of beginning a phenomenographic research which focuses on the rapper LK. It focuses on what calls a "videophenomenography", which corresponds to the moment where LK agreed to film himself, alone, during the creation of a verse. One particularly interesting device attempted was the realization of a "videophenomenography", in which LK agreed to film himself, alone, during a moment of creation.

"Expérience intime et quotidienne s’il en est, la fatigue interroge et perturbe nos frontières psychiques et physiques, dans une sorte d’entre-deux. Est-elle un signal d’alarme, une forme de stress, ou encore une émotion ? L’approche biomédicale occidentale peinant ou renonçant à définir ce symptôme non spécifique, trop subjectif, c’est davantage aux sciences humaines et sociales ou aux sciences de l’esprit que recourt ce Dictionnaire pour approcher au plus près du cœur du phénomène. Représentant un large éventail de disciplines, 91 auteurs montrent au fil de ces 131 entrées qu’à travers les peuples et les siècles, chaque groupe humain développe son entité de fatigue de prédilection, au gré de son rapport au corps, au divin, à la mort ou au travail. De l’acédie à la mélancolie, de la neurasthénie au burn out ou au bore out, ce Dictionnaire de la fatigue jette ainsi les fondements d’une anthropologie de la fatigue qui reste à construire." (4ème page de couverture)

Dictionnaire de l'humain. Un dictionnaire pour réveiller le thème de l'humain, pour lui faire tenir ses promesses scientifiques, pour faire jaillir sa richesse philosophique. Art, divin, guerre, hominidé, langage, sédentarisation, singe, volonté… : des philosophes, des psychologues, des sociologues...ont ainsi saisi plus de soixante-dix entrées...