Liminality, States of Exception and the Problem of Enlightenment

Abstract

The perspective of Political Anthropology enables us to make sense of the perplexing (hyper-modern rather than post-modern) times we are living through and – as understood in this chapter, following the journal International Political Anthropology and the Routledge series Contemporary Liminality – is not an area of anthropology as a discipline, but a genuinely inter-disciplinary field, combining Nietzsche-Weber-Foucauldian genealogy and comparative historical sociology (including Elias, Borkenau, Mumford, Voegelin and Koselleck), classical philosophical anthropology (especially Plato and Aristotle) and certain key concepts by maverick anthropologists (liminality, trickster, imitation, schismogenesis, gift-relations and participation), while also incorporating comparative archaeology, mythology and art. The focus will be on liminality, which is increasingly becoming a master concept in social understanding, though encountering a marked hostility from mainstream rationalism and critique. The concept’s significance is in how it combines transition, transformation and crisis, but also the ‘out of ordinary’ (Weber) and ‘states of exception’ (Schmitt, Agamben). Extending the concept’s use from the study of rituals (especially rites of passage) to historical analysis, the turning points of history, in any culture or civilisation, can be conceived of as liminal moments. The main body of the chapter consists of three parts. The first argues that the term liminality is particularly helpful to capture contemporary uncertainty. The second is devoted to states of exception as a modality of liminality. The final and most important part of the chapter is about the three evils of modernity: the fairground economy, the public sphere as a void and alchemic technologised science.