Transacting ontologies: Kockelman’s sieves and a Bayesian anthropology

Abstract

To understand Paul Kockelman’s article, “The anthropology of an equation,” it is more important to grasp its form, the set of relations built into it, than it is to learn his specific vocabulary. As he says here and elsewhere in his writings, if you don’t like the words he’s using—because they seem overly analytical, too Peircean, “not ethnographic”—then use your own, or use those of someone else, “your people’s” even.