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Introduction: Intensity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2022

Paul Kockelman
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
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Summary

This book is about intensity, which might be provisionally understood as significant degrees of salient dimensions in shared worlds. For example, what counts as too hot, very cruel, not far enough, over-priced, most pressing, underwhelming, sooner than previously believed, excessively polite, almost unlivable, or extremely shortsighted. As may be seen, such assessments involve dimensions such as heat, speed, proximity, cruelty, price, importance, unlivability and shortsightedness. Such assessments involve degrees, and ways of manipulating them: discursive resources and embodied registers for sensing and expressing how hot, cruel, close, expensive, shortsighted, or unlivable something is. And such assessments involve the particular worlds in which such dimensions and degrees come to matter: not just physical places with ecological potentials and material constraints, but also imagined worlds of possibility and necessity, normative worlds of permission and obligation, economic worlds of credit and debt, affective worlds of anxiety and desire, and far beyond.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Anthropology of Intensity
Language, Culture, and Environment
, pp. 1 - 24
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Introduction: Intensity
  • Paul Kockelman, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: The Anthropology of Intensity
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009024235.001
Available formats
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  • Introduction: Intensity
  • Paul Kockelman, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: The Anthropology of Intensity
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009024235.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction: Intensity
  • Paul Kockelman, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book: The Anthropology of Intensity
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009024235.001
Available formats
×