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Faire : anthropologie, archéologie, art et architecture
D’où proviennent les formes ? Dans ce livre l’anthropologue Tim Ingold propose de déconstruire le modèle philosophique hylémorphique qui, depuis Aristote, pense l’acte de fabrication comme l’imposition d’une forme, ou d’un projet, à la matière inerte. Ce renversement théorique n’est possible qu’à la faveur d’une approche matérialiste de la fabrication qui révèle la correspondance des pratiques avec les matériaux, leur itinérance au sein de la matière pour engendrer des formes. Cette réflexion conduit Ingold à faire la proposition d’une pédagogie participante suggérant une nouvelle conception de l’enseignement fondée sur l’élucidation des pratiques constitutives des gestes de fabrication. L’anthropologie, l’archéologie, l’art et l’architecture ne sont pas ici considérées comme des disciplines académiques, mais comme des manières de faire qui explorent chacune, à leur façon, les conditions et les potentiels de la vie humaine au sein de son environnement.
320 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2012
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739 people want to read
About the author
Tim Ingold
65 books208 followersTim Ingold (born 1948) is a British social anthropologist, currently Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. He was educated at Leighton Park School and Cambridge University. He is a fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His bibliography includes The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, Routledge, 2000, which is a collection of essays, some of which had been published earlier.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 21, 2013
Tim Ingold's 'Making' is a worthy successor to his earlier `Lines: A Brief History' and `Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description'. This book is a very rich and satisfying critique of the objectivist epistemology and technocratic ethos that underpins much of knowledge production today.
The critique operates at different levels. Its opening gambit is a prima facie plea to save the discipline of anthropology from a collapse into the documentary thrust of ethnography. Ingold sees the former as a transformational "space for generous, open-ended comparative yet critical enquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life". Ethnography merely turns `participant observation' into `qualitative data' that are to be analysed in terms of an exogenous body of theory. These are fundamentally different, antithetical ways of knowing. Ingold's argument is a call to deepen our knowledge of the world from the inside, as fellow travellers, as co-producers with other beings and things that command our attention. Knowing, therefore, is `understanding in practice'. It is inextricably meshed with `making' as an active engagement with the material world.
Here the central theme of the book emerges. We are used to think of making as a `project', with a rather precise idea in mind of what we like to produce (a plan, a design) and a supply of materials to achieve it. Ingold contrasts this `hylomorphic' model with a `morphogenetic' approach that enacts making as a contingent process of growth. Making becomes a process of entering "the grain of the world's becoming and bend it to an evolving purpose". The author goes on to demonstrate the power and relevance of the morphogenetic approach in a revealing series of case studies centering on very different `things and beings' drawn from the realms of anthropology, archeology, art and architecture (`the four A's'). These include ancient utensils such as paleolithic handaxes, quasi-natural landscape features such a prehistoric mounds and technical, complex artefacts such as watches and cathedrals. Ingold wields the morphogenetic perspective as a conceptual lever to unearth layers upon layers of very rich and surprising insights. On this journey he sides with intellectual allies such as Deleuze and Guattari, Richard Sennett, Vilem Flusser, Gregory Bateson and the paleontologist André Leroi-Gourhan (to name just a few).
The relevance of Ingold's argument goes beyond the already expansive territory encapsulated by the four A's. From my perspective it connects seamlessly with recent (and not so recent) insights in decision-making theory, in management, foresight and transition studies and in soft systems approaches. On the other hand it seems that the epistemology defended by Ingold is a radical critique of the kind of `hard' systems thinking that is sought after by decision-makers who are increasingly taxed by the savage unruliness of the world unfolding beyond their boardroom doors. This kind of `joined-up thinking' Ingold considers to be "a friend of reason but an enemy of sentience".
Apart from the cogency of an argument that is very difficult to do justice in a brief review, it seems to me this book has a number of qualities that enhance the reading experience. Despite its richness it is a slim volume (a mere 140 pages) and therefore doesn't impose undue claims on time-pressed readers. Ingold's prose is, as always, carefully groomed and accessible without being condescending. Also, I relished the appositeness of the carefully chosen references, which provide opportunities for engaging follow-up study (Lars Spuybroek's `The Architecture of Continuity: Essays and Conversations' and David Turnbull's `Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers' to name but two of my personal favourites). Altogether this is an important book that I'd like to emphatically recommend to the intellectually curious, whatever their disciplinary background.
The critique operates at different levels. Its opening gambit is a prima facie plea to save the discipline of anthropology from a collapse into the documentary thrust of ethnography. Ingold sees the former as a transformational "space for generous, open-ended comparative yet critical enquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life". Ethnography merely turns `participant observation' into `qualitative data' that are to be analysed in terms of an exogenous body of theory. These are fundamentally different, antithetical ways of knowing. Ingold's argument is a call to deepen our knowledge of the world from the inside, as fellow travellers, as co-producers with other beings and things that command our attention. Knowing, therefore, is `understanding in practice'. It is inextricably meshed with `making' as an active engagement with the material world.
Here the central theme of the book emerges. We are used to think of making as a `project', with a rather precise idea in mind of what we like to produce (a plan, a design) and a supply of materials to achieve it. Ingold contrasts this `hylomorphic' model with a `morphogenetic' approach that enacts making as a contingent process of growth. Making becomes a process of entering "the grain of the world's becoming and bend it to an evolving purpose". The author goes on to demonstrate the power and relevance of the morphogenetic approach in a revealing series of case studies centering on very different `things and beings' drawn from the realms of anthropology, archeology, art and architecture (`the four A's'). These include ancient utensils such as paleolithic handaxes, quasi-natural landscape features such a prehistoric mounds and technical, complex artefacts such as watches and cathedrals. Ingold wields the morphogenetic perspective as a conceptual lever to unearth layers upon layers of very rich and surprising insights. On this journey he sides with intellectual allies such as Deleuze and Guattari, Richard Sennett, Vilem Flusser, Gregory Bateson and the paleontologist André Leroi-Gourhan (to name just a few).
The relevance of Ingold's argument goes beyond the already expansive territory encapsulated by the four A's. From my perspective it connects seamlessly with recent (and not so recent) insights in decision-making theory, in management, foresight and transition studies and in soft systems approaches. On the other hand it seems that the epistemology defended by Ingold is a radical critique of the kind of `hard' systems thinking that is sought after by decision-makers who are increasingly taxed by the savage unruliness of the world unfolding beyond their boardroom doors. This kind of `joined-up thinking' Ingold considers to be "a friend of reason but an enemy of sentience".
Apart from the cogency of an argument that is very difficult to do justice in a brief review, it seems to me this book has a number of qualities that enhance the reading experience. Despite its richness it is a slim volume (a mere 140 pages) and therefore doesn't impose undue claims on time-pressed readers. Ingold's prose is, as always, carefully groomed and accessible without being condescending. Also, I relished the appositeness of the carefully chosen references, which provide opportunities for engaging follow-up study (Lars Spuybroek's `The Architecture of Continuity: Essays and Conversations' and David Turnbull's `Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers' to name but two of my personal favourites). Altogether this is an important book that I'd like to emphatically recommend to the intellectually curious, whatever their disciplinary background.
May 31, 2023
Everyone who has anything to do with creativity should read this!
March 27, 2025
I'll start this review with an important disclaimer: I'm not an anthropologist nor a philosopher, far from it. So everything that I found interesting and compelling in this book might be considered irrelevant and dumb by someone in the field and vice-versa, I don't know.
This is the first book I've ever read from Tim Ingold, and I did it on a whim after attending a brief lecture he gave at a book convention. It is not a long book but man, does it have a lot to say on a lot of subjects.
I can't say that I understood completely all his arguments, nor that I agreed on all his opinions. I actually felt that some of his reasoning where a bit shaky and some conclusions quite perplexing. All of them are presented as facts, like it couldn't be in any other way, despite citing a lot of people that disagrees with him. Still, I imagine this is the usual way of presenting your philosophical musings, how can you convince someone of something you don't firmly believe in?
So: did I like this book? Well, yes, very much. I took it as a collection of intellectual exercises, in a field in which I know pretty much nothing about. I never asked myself before any of the questions that are presented in abundance, which allowed me to see things in a different light. What more could we ask for?
This is the first book I've ever read from Tim Ingold, and I did it on a whim after attending a brief lecture he gave at a book convention. It is not a long book but man, does it have a lot to say on a lot of subjects.
I can't say that I understood completely all his arguments, nor that I agreed on all his opinions. I actually felt that some of his reasoning where a bit shaky and some conclusions quite perplexing. All of them are presented as facts, like it couldn't be in any other way, despite citing a lot of people that disagrees with him. Still, I imagine this is the usual way of presenting your philosophical musings, how can you convince someone of something you don't firmly believe in?
So: did I like this book? Well, yes, very much. I took it as a collection of intellectual exercises, in a field in which I know pretty much nothing about. I never asked myself before any of the questions that are presented in abundance, which allowed me to see things in a different light. What more could we ask for?
Read
September 7, 2024Ingold’s writing is at its strongest when he describes material properties and processes of making specific items such as his students creating string from scratch using palm leaf fibers. Another example is his descrition of student learning to weave baskets:
Much of the book describes this condition of thinking through making. To make something is not as simple as imposing a preconceived idea on materials. All making is subject to this process of discovery. A heightened example of this that I have experienced is the process of making molds/formwork. Not only is the mold builder discovering/thinking as they construct the mold itself, but they are even further removed from the object yet to be poured. The exercise is highly anticipatory as the mold builder is only making the negative of the object they will eventually cast. I would love to hear Ingold’s commentary on this and other processes of construction. He discusses watchmaking, bricklaying, stone masonry, string making, weaving, flaking, and pottery. There are likely other discussions of material-oriented crafts that I’m forgetting. Surprisingly, Ingold also discusses dance, playing instruments, drawing, writing, looking, entering/exiting spaces, and the act of visually framing one’s gaze. These latter examples, while educational, were some of my least favorite parts of the book. This is where the references to other academics felt heavy and broke the flow of Ingold’s otherwise personal prose.
This book is a treasure trove of sources. I’m most excited to learn more from David Turnbull (author of Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers) and dance philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnstone. While it serves as a great introduction to many useful sources, in the latter half of the book, the quotes become so frequent that I’m left wanting more from Ingold… anecdotes of teaching students and descriptions of activities rather than references to the usual suspects who I’ve grown tired of over the years (e.g. Heidegger’s ready-to-hand). There is one exception. If you’re a design student who is interested in the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari, I recommend this book and simply perusing A Thousand Plateaus rather than trying to fully read the latter. Ingold cites A Thousand Plateaus many times and shows myriad ways their philosophies can be applied to craft.
Another highlight is Ingold’s description of transduction. The easiest way I can summarize the concept is as follows: With the help of certain items/materials, a person can correspond with additional items/materials. This is done by the transducer item/material acting as a bridge between the person’s kinesthesia and other material flows. Among several examples, he describes a herdsman’s toggle (the transducer) allowing a back-and-forth between the throw/pull (kinesthesia) and the rope (material flow) in the act of roping cattle. Another, a flyer’s kite (the transducer) allows for the back-and-forth between the flyer’s gate and the presence/shortage of wind while flying a kite. Another example I thought of for a transducer is a snowshoe. With each step, a person can adjust their balance as their weight is distributed via the snowshoe’s network across the snow particle field (describing snow in this manner alludes to Ingold’s description of mounds p.76).
On the topic of networks, in a different context, Ingold provides the following definition of networks when comparing them to meshworks:
Maybe this is why I don’t enjoy networking. If we take Ingold’s description of networks and apply them to the social exercise of networking, it becomes clear that people network for a specific end goal; each party has one more possible business contact regardless of what is communicated. The relationship is stunted from the outset, destined to exist only as a contact. I’d much rather engage in “meshworking,” people engage in meaningful dialogue despite knowing there is a chance they may never speak again, all the while leaving the possibility for the relationship to grow beyond what is being discussed at the present moment. Kindness can be the result, a meshwork of sporadic dialogues that deny being “contact-zoned” and are instead allowed to grow. It is infinite play according to Carse.
I loved the chapters “On Making a Hand Axe” and “On Building a House.” As an architect, I need to understand that my drawings are templates at best and that communication is paramount.
Then we realized that it was actually this resistance, the friction set up by branches bent forcibly against each other, that held the whole construction together. The form was not imposed on the material from without, but was rather generated in this force field, comprised by the relations between the weaver and the willow.
Much of the book describes this condition of thinking through making. To make something is not as simple as imposing a preconceived idea on materials. All making is subject to this process of discovery. A heightened example of this that I have experienced is the process of making molds/formwork. Not only is the mold builder discovering/thinking as they construct the mold itself, but they are even further removed from the object yet to be poured. The exercise is highly anticipatory as the mold builder is only making the negative of the object they will eventually cast. I would love to hear Ingold’s commentary on this and other processes of construction. He discusses watchmaking, bricklaying, stone masonry, string making, weaving, flaking, and pottery. There are likely other discussions of material-oriented crafts that I’m forgetting. Surprisingly, Ingold also discusses dance, playing instruments, drawing, writing, looking, entering/exiting spaces, and the act of visually framing one’s gaze. These latter examples, while educational, were some of my least favorite parts of the book. This is where the references to other academics felt heavy and broke the flow of Ingold’s otherwise personal prose.
This book is a treasure trove of sources. I’m most excited to learn more from David Turnbull (author of Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers) and dance philosopher Maxine Sheets-Johnstone. While it serves as a great introduction to many useful sources, in the latter half of the book, the quotes become so frequent that I’m left wanting more from Ingold… anecdotes of teaching students and descriptions of activities rather than references to the usual suspects who I’ve grown tired of over the years (e.g. Heidegger’s ready-to-hand). There is one exception. If you’re a design student who is interested in the ideas of Deleuze and Guattari, I recommend this book and simply perusing A Thousand Plateaus rather than trying to fully read the latter. Ingold cites A Thousand Plateaus many times and shows myriad ways their philosophies can be applied to craft.
Another highlight is Ingold’s description of transduction. The easiest way I can summarize the concept is as follows: With the help of certain items/materials, a person can correspond with additional items/materials. This is done by the transducer item/material acting as a bridge between the person’s kinesthesia and other material flows. Among several examples, he describes a herdsman’s toggle (the transducer) allowing a back-and-forth between the throw/pull (kinesthesia) and the rope (material flow) in the act of roping cattle. Another, a flyer’s kite (the transducer) allows for the back-and-forth between the flyer’s gate and the presence/shortage of wind while flying a kite. Another example I thought of for a transducer is a snowshoe. With each step, a person can adjust their balance as their weight is distributed via the snowshoe’s network across the snow particle field (describing snow in this manner alludes to Ingold’s description of mounds p.76).
On the topic of networks, in a different context, Ingold provides the following definition of networks when comparing them to meshworks:
the lines of the network are connectors: each is given as the relation between points, independently and in advance of any movement from one towards the other. Such lines therefore lack duration: the network is a purely spatial construct. The lines of the meshwork, by contrast, are of movement or growth. They are temporal ‘lines of becoming’ (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004)
Maybe this is why I don’t enjoy networking. If we take Ingold’s description of networks and apply them to the social exercise of networking, it becomes clear that people network for a specific end goal; each party has one more possible business contact regardless of what is communicated. The relationship is stunted from the outset, destined to exist only as a contact. I’d much rather engage in “meshworking,” people engage in meaningful dialogue despite knowing there is a chance they may never speak again, all the while leaving the possibility for the relationship to grow beyond what is being discussed at the present moment. Kindness can be the result, a meshwork of sporadic dialogues that deny being “contact-zoned” and are instead allowed to grow. It is infinite play according to Carse.
I loved the chapters “On Making a Hand Axe” and “On Building a House.” As an architect, I need to understand that my drawings are templates at best and that communication is paramount.
October 17, 2023
Libro estremamente pretenzioso, scritto con linguaggio che oscilla tra il poetante e il misticheggiante, risultando però soltanto snervante.
Pretende di parlare di ben quattro discipline, le "Quattro A" come le definisce l'autore: Antropologia, Archeologia, Arte e Architettura, ma lo fa in maniera confusionaria, spezzettata, inframmezzata da digressioni francamente poco utili.
Forse due dei nove capitoli sono utili e contengono qualcosa di minimamente "succoso", il resto è un continuo sciorinare frasi poetiche, metafore poco chiare, et similia, il tutto condito da citazionismo ossessivo e la tipica critica alle forme di sapere tradizionale da chi assume simili pose.
In una parola: libro da non leggere se non si ha del tempo da perdere (in malo modo).
Pretende di parlare di ben quattro discipline, le "Quattro A" come le definisce l'autore: Antropologia, Archeologia, Arte e Architettura, ma lo fa in maniera confusionaria, spezzettata, inframmezzata da digressioni francamente poco utili.
Forse due dei nove capitoli sono utili e contengono qualcosa di minimamente "succoso", il resto è un continuo sciorinare frasi poetiche, metafore poco chiare, et similia, il tutto condito da citazionismo ossessivo e la tipica critica alle forme di sapere tradizionale da chi assume simili pose.
In una parola: libro da non leggere se non si ha del tempo da perdere (in malo modo).
October 3, 2021
چگونه ميتوان دانش و معرفتى پيرامون چيزها حاصل كرد؛ نه اينكه لزوماً چيزها را شواهد (بخوانيد بردگان)ى براى تحصيل شناختى نسبت به انسان ها در نظر آورد؟ اين كتاب نخستين رساله در خط مقدم برسازش يك منظومه معرفتى نوين خواهد بود كه ميتوان آن را "چيزشناسى" دانست كه "چيزنگارى" هم قسمى از آن است. نگارش آن را بى گمان از تيم اينگولد ميتوان چشم داشت كه پيشتر با نگارش كتابهاى زنده بودن و تاريخچه خطها زمينه را براى ورود به ساحت ساختن و كنكاشى ژرف در همه ابعاد آن فراهم ساخته است. انسان شناسى وى را هرگز نميتوان انسان شناسى در معناى متعارف آن برشمرد.
July 8, 2023
Although his philosophical musings on what hands are were almost too highbrow for me, this book provided an accessible and engaging perspective on the importance of learning through making. Ingold discusses this concept in the context of anthropology research, but any artist who makes things with their hands will find new inspiration for their craft in this book.
December 11, 2022
Very beautiful book!! Anti-capitalist at its finest! I've read it for a course at uni but really enjoyed
February 13, 2024
3 e mezzo x difetto
January 25, 2016
Beautiful and insightful prose on the nature of understanding how beings of all type meld their energy with their environment in wondrous composition.
"All learning, as I hope that you have found by now, is self-discovery. Where next? Know for yourself!"
"All learning, as I hope that you have found by now, is self-discovery. Where next? Know for yourself!"
June 22, 2016
Bringing the 4As together makes more and more sense while reading it. Demanding at points but very rewarding.
January 2, 2018
Sorry, but find it boring.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews