ABSTRACT
Marathon runner Paolo Maccagno and kayaker Deborah Pinniger explore moving upstream and downstream in their respective practice. Maccagno’s recent projects in prison investigate marathon running within walls, while Pinniger’s lifelong engagement kayaking down rivers, pays homage to their educational potential. Their respective aims and skilled practices have informed a conversation on limits and education which is the subject of this chapter. In relation to Ingold’s idea of anthropology as a practice of education, the authors investigate the inspirational notion of educere-leading out (Ingold 2018). Movement is at the centre of their inquiry and is understood as an ‘issuing along with things in the very processes of their generation’ (Ingold 2011: 12), constituting the existential ground wherein humans can be resituated in the world together with non-human inhabitants. They consider upstream and downstream as two movements countering mainstream paths of attention and education. Through their conversation, they hope to contribute to the ‘ quiet revolution’ initiated by Ingold towards decolonising scholarship by showing the potential of experimental research methods. Their effort participates in the current debate around anthropology and/as education by opening a path into the anthropology of the limit as an educational practice.
