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Article: Guanyin’s Limbo: Icons as Demi-Persons and Dividuating Objects

TitleGuanyin’s Limbo: Icons as Demi-Persons and Dividuating Objects
Authors
Issue Date2019
PublisherWiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. The Journal's web site is located at https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15481433
Citation
American Anthropologist, 2019, v. 121 n. 4, p. 897-910 How to Cite?
AbstractHow do objects and humans relationally constitute one another? In this article, we examine statues of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, in Hong Kong to illuminate the forms of personhood and agency that arise through human–icon relations in a modern metropolis. We follow the life course of Guanyin statues, investigating their production, circulation, animation, and disposal—teasing out worshippers’ contradictory discourses on whether the deity is present in the statue or in the mind of the worshipper. These ethnographic observations lead us to consider how anthropological debates about the nature of cultural objects as representations or as agents parallel Guanyin practices and discourses in Hong Kong. We suggest how the ambivalent status of Guanyin statues is negotiated for practitioners as “demi‐persons” and can be understood for anthropologists through the concept of the “dividuating object.” [material religion, animism, agency, personhood, icon, Hong Kong]
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/275489
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 2.6
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.790
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorPalmer, DA-
dc.contributor.authorTse, MHM-
dc.contributor.authorColwell, C-
dc.date.accessioned2019-09-10T02:43:34Z-
dc.date.available2019-09-10T02:43:34Z-
dc.date.issued2019-
dc.identifier.citationAmerican Anthropologist, 2019, v. 121 n. 4, p. 897-910-
dc.identifier.issn0002-7294-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/275489-
dc.description.abstractHow do objects and humans relationally constitute one another? In this article, we examine statues of Guanyin, the bodhisattva of compassion, in Hong Kong to illuminate the forms of personhood and agency that arise through human–icon relations in a modern metropolis. We follow the life course of Guanyin statues, investigating their production, circulation, animation, and disposal—teasing out worshippers’ contradictory discourses on whether the deity is present in the statue or in the mind of the worshipper. These ethnographic observations lead us to consider how anthropological debates about the nature of cultural objects as representations or as agents parallel Guanyin practices and discourses in Hong Kong. We suggest how the ambivalent status of Guanyin statues is negotiated for practitioners as “demi‐persons” and can be understood for anthropologists through the concept of the “dividuating object.” [material religion, animism, agency, personhood, icon, Hong Kong]-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherWiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc. The Journal's web site is located at https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15481433-
dc.relation.ispartofAmerican Anthropologist-
dc.rightsPreprint This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: [FULL CITE], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article using the DOI]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. Postprint This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: [FULL CITE], which has been published in final form at [Link to final article using the DOI]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.-
dc.rightsThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.-
dc.titleGuanyin’s Limbo: Icons as Demi-Persons and Dividuating Objects-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailPalmer, DA: palmer19@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.emailTse, MHM: martinmh@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityPalmer, DA=rp00654-
dc.description.naturepublished_or_final_version-
dc.identifier.doi10.1111/aman.13317-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-85070976543-
dc.identifier.hkuros302447-
dc.identifier.volume121-
dc.identifier.issue4-
dc.identifier.spage897-
dc.identifier.epage910-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000483039200001-
dc.publisher.placeUnited States-
dc.identifier.issnl0002-7294-

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