Anthropology

1. ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY
ARE NOT EQUIVALENT

2. Methodology and History in Anthropology
Series Editors:
David Parkin, Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford
David Gellner, Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford
Nayanika Mathur, Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford
Recent volumes:
Volume 41
Anthropology and Ethnography Are Not Equivalent:
Reorienting Anthropology for the Future
Edited by Irfan Ahmad
Volume 40
Search after Method: Sensing, Moving, and Imagining in
Anthropological Fieldwork
Edited by Julie Laplante, Ari Gandsman, and Willow Scobie
Volume 39
After Society: Anthropological Trajectories out of Oxford
Edited by João Pina-Cabral and Glenn Bowman
Volume 38
Total Atheism: Secular Activism and Politics of Difference in South India
Stefan Binder
Volume 37
Crossing Histories and Ethnographies: Following Colonial Historicities in
Timor-Leste
Edited by Ricardo Roque and Elizabeth G. Traube
Volume 36
Engaging Evil: A Moral Anthropology
Edited by William C. Olsen and Thomas J. Csordas
Volume 35
Medicinal Rule: A Historical Anthropology of Kingship in East and Central Africa
Koen Stroeken
Volume 34
Who Are “We”? Reimagining Alterity and Affinity in Anthropology
Edited by Liana Chua and Nayanika Mathur
Volume 33
Expeditionary Anthropology: Teamwork, Travel and the “Science of Man”
Edited by Martin Thomas and Amanda Harris
Volume 32
Returning Life: Language, Life Force and History in Kilimanjaro
Knut Christian Myhre
For a full volume listing, please see the series page on our website:
http://berghahnbooks.com/series/methodology-and-history-in-anthropology

3. ANTHROPOLOGY AND
ETHNOGRAPHY ARE
NOT EQUIVALENT
Reorienting Anthropology for the Future
Edited by
Irfan Ahmad
berghahn
N E W Y O R K • O X F O R D
www.berghahnbooks.com

4. First published in 2021 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2021 Irfan Ahmad
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[to come]
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78920-988-4 hardback
ISBN 978-1-78920-989-1 ebook

5. To My Teachers Who Are No More
Mahmood Alam
[Madrasa Islamia ‘Arabia, Dumri, Sheohar, Bihar, India]
Gerd Baumann (1953–2014)
[University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands]
Joginder Singh Gandhi
[Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi]
Johan Goudsblom (1932–2020)
[University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands]
Mustafa Master
[Madrasa Islamia ‘Arabia, Dumri, Sheohar, Bihar, India]
Abdul Moghni
[B. N. College Patna, Patna University, Bihar]
Bikram Narayan Nanda
[Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi]
SM Akram Rizvi
[Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi]
Yogendra Singh (1932–2020)
[Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi]

7. CONTENTS
List of Figures viii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction. On the Equivalence between Anthropology
and Ethnography 1
Irfan Ahmad
Chapter 1. Beyond Correspondence: Doing Anthropology
of Islam in the Field and Classroom 20
Hatsuki Aishima
Chapter 2. Anthropology as an Experimental Mode of
Inquiry 36
Arpita Roy
Chapter 3. Graphic Designs: On Constellational Writing, or
a Benjaminian Response to Ingold’s Critique of Ethnography 53
Jeremy F. Walton
Chapter 4. Non-correspondence in Fieldwork: Death,
Dark Ethnography, and the Need for Temporal Alienation 71
Patrice Ladwig
Chapter 5. Commitment, Correspondence, and Fieldwork as
Nonvolitional Dwelling: A Weberian Critique 93
Patrick Eisenlohr
Chapter 6. A New Holistic Anthropology with Politics In 112
Irfan Ahmad
Afterword 141
Tim Ingold
Index 153

8. LIST OF FIGURES
0.1. Cat at Irfan Ahmad’s souterrain apartment during the
Coronavirus quarantine x
3.1. New mosques in Thessaloniki, Greece 61
4.1. Worker of a local crematorium, presenting offerings to
spirits, Thailand 78
4.2. Mortician (sappaloe) in front of an open coffin, Thailand 79
6.1. Absent political anthropology in four-field
anthropology 116
6.2. Heterogeneous singularity about equation between
Islam and terrorism 123

9. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The idea of this volume organically emerged from a discussion that
took place in September 2017 at the Max Planck Institute for the
Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Göttingen, Germany. The
aim of the discussion was to reflect on Tim Ingold’s influential recent
interventions concerning the relationships between anthropology
and ethnography. One of the questions the discussion addressed was:
“Is ‘that’s enough about ethnography’ enough?”
I thank Nate Roberts who enthusiastically supported the idea of
the discussion as well as lent help in its organization. As the Director
of the Max Planck Institute, Peter van der Veer graciously facilitated
the discussion as well as took part in it. I am thankful to him. Several
months after this event, I contacted Tim Ingold, inviting him to re-
spond to the writings brought together in this volume, which critically
engage with his exposition. I thank him for accepting my invitation
and offering multiple rich suggestions in the subsequent stages of this
project. Of course, I am thankful to the contributors for writing their
chapters and attending to my comments, suggestions, and queries.
I am greatly thankful to the two anonymous reviewers who offered
constructive criticisms and helpful suggestions about the volume as
well as specific chapters. Their incorporation has hopefully made the
volume richer and more refined. Their comments have enabled me to
sharpen some points in the Introduction as well as organize the vol-
ume. My thanks also go to the editors of the Methodology & History
in Anthropology series, of which, I am pleased, this book eventually
became part, and whose editors also made instructive comments.Tom
Bonnington, Assistant Editor at Berghahn, efficiently supervised the
peer review process, offered useful advice along the way, and, yes,
sent me uplifting timely reminders. Early on, Marion Berghahn, Di-
rector of Berghahn Books, enthusiastically took interest in the book
proposal. I am extremely grateful to her. In its penultimate stage, my
partner, Sana Ghazi (herself an anthropologist), has contributed to
this book in many ways. I wonder if “thank you” to her is a suitable
phrase to say.

10. Much of the revision, including the editorial, of this volume was
done during “social distancing” in order to fight (escape?) the coro-
navirus. The friend with whom I interacted most during this strange
period was the black-and-white cat in my neighbourhood who visited
me regularly. Our friendship is over one year long. Initially, I offered
her milk, which she had no interest in. Unlike cats in India, cats in
Germany eat meat dishes. So, based on my new knowledge, I began to
buy special cat food from the supermarket. As I used to get Alnatura
organic corn flakes for myself, I began to buy organic food for her too,
Figure 0.1. Cat at Irfan Ahmad’s souterrain apartment during the Corona-
virus quarantine, Gottingen, Germany. © Irfan Ahmad.
x Acknowledgments

11. which the cat liked more than the nonorganic type. “Desire for oth-
ers,” so goes a hadīth, “what you love for yourself.”
Engrossed in revision one day, I did not immediately notice her
quiet arrival at the window—her special door—asking to come into
my apartment. Was I unconsciously protecting myself from the virus?
She sat facing the window glass and me for half an hour. Later, when
I opened the window to let her in, she jumped in to lovingly circle
around my legs. She did not at first eat the organic food I offered. She
waited until I had caressed her. We were then faced with the humanity
of animals and the animality of humans.
In Bollywood films, heroes often curse and threaten the villains
saying, “You will die a dog’s death.” Do dogs curse one another say-
ing, “You will die a human’s death”? What would the cat have said to
her fellows and herself about me not opening the window for half an
hour?
As I see it, questions such as these are integral to the ideas of cor-
respondence, attentionality, resonance, and anthropology a la Tim
Ingold, as well as to the reorienting of the discipline for the future and
public imagination writ large. Turn the page, dear readers, or scroll
down.
Irfan Ahmad
Göttingen, 31 March 2020
Acknowledgments xi