Beyond nature and culture

Stripped of any functional or purposive dimension (such as a desire for togetherness) that notion of a collective is also somewhat different from Latour’s definition of one: namely, a specific association of humans and non-humans as put together or “collected” within a network at a particular given moment and in a particular given place. Likewise, for me, a collective is a group combining entities of many kinds. But it is not, strictly speaking, one organized as a network whose frontiers—inexistent in effect if one decides to include all their ramifications—can only be drawn by the analyst’s arbitrary decision to limit his field of study to data that he is in a position to take into account. If, instead, one recognizes that the limits of any collective are co-extensive with the area of influence of this or that schema of practices, then its definition will depend above all on the manner in which the humans in it organize their experience, in particular in their relations with non-humans.15 The task traditionally assigned to anthropology, namely to set in order and compare the discouraging multiplicity of circumstances in this world, will in this way perhaps be rendered less difficult, providing grounds for hope for those who persist in believing in the worth of such a mission and a sign of encouragement for those who wish to devote themselves to the task.