ABSTRACT
The second chapter tracks anthropology’s colonial legacy in the development of ethnography, a methodology initially designed to make the practices of the Other legible to the West by translating orality and embodiment into scholarly writing. The reader is then invited to embark on an imaginary visit to ancient Greece to probe what philosopher Adriana Cavarero calls the devocalization of logos, and take part in a performative ethnographic encounter with Plato’s Ion, a skilled rhapsodist and vocal expert whom Plato attempts to silence in his text. The reader is challenged by Cavarero to confront the Derridean critique of voice and presence, and enticed by semiologist Roland Barthes to delight in the non-discursive, sensory experience of vocal music. The material affective efficacy of vocality is summoned by Antonin Artaud’s alchemical theatre, and both Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze convey their enduring fascination with Artaud’s visionary attempt to emancipate performance from the dominance of speech/text in support of the non-representational intensification of presence. Finally, Artaud’s trip to Mexico in search of healing opens up possibilities for engaging with the agential role of sound, music, and song within the peyote ceremonial practices of the Tarahumara.
