Research 4.0 and the ontological turn: Implications for researching the radical alterity of witches’ familiars in the twenty-first century
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Date
2025
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Publisher
Brill
Abstract
Drawing on the term ‘Research 4.0’ to describe research that relies on twenty-firstcentury convergent technologies that are defining industry 4.0, including human
sensory enhancements, this paper interrogates the ontological turn to interface spirituality and technology. Drawing on fieldwork in Zimbabwe, this paper contends that
Research 4.0 enhances relational fieldwork, which is an aspect of the ontological turn,
but it cautions that African ontologies should not be mistaken for relational ontologies that presuppose that humans and nonhumans are on the same ontological plane.
The paper contends that with the human enhancements that come with Research 4.0
it would be possible to consider research on both human subjectivities and nonhuman umwelts, including those of animal familiars. And when humans begin to share
genomes of nonhuman witches’ familiars, in chimera-hood, it becomes possible to
study the visible and invisible of quantum anthropology in ways that obviate the pitfalls of the speculative turn
Description
This paper argues that for researchers to access and
immerse themselves in the umwelt (or subjectivities) of nonhuman animals
they have to become animals. Similarly, for researchers to access and immerse
themselves in the world of spirits they have to become spirits, and for researchers to access and immerse themselves in the world of witches’ familiars they
have to become witches’ familiars so that they understand matters from the
emic positions of each world
Keywords
Research, Ontology, Technology, Anthropology, Enhancements, Witchcraft, Namibia, University of Namibia, Anthropology of religion, Religious studies, Religion, African studies, Sociology of religion, History of religion