Societies or Lifeworlds?

The ontological turn in anthropology has led to a shift in how we understand radical difference, moving from epistemological differences to ontological ones. This shift has made researchers aware that fundamental categorical and typological differences can be discovered during anthropological fieldwork. The ways in which boundaries between animate and inanimate entities, as well as between humans and non-humans, are drawn, also affects how the boundaries of society are defined. It raises questions about whether the concept of “society” as understood by anthropologists is applicable to every community. This article discusses the challenges in conceptualizing society and highlights a key methodological pitfall in ontological anthropology: the tendency to impose rigid onto-typological models, similar to how traditional anthropological approaches treated the concept of culture as a monolithic system. Rather than fixating on fixed categories, embracing the fluidity of ideas may be more helpful in understanding the “native point of view”. One of the main lessons from ontological anthropology is that unclear fieldwork leads to fuzzy concepts, which is not necessarily a negative outcome.