The Affectiveness of Symbols: Materiality, Magicality, and the Limits of the Antisemiotic Turn

Abstract

In response to an oft-encountered stance against semiotic or symbolic analysis in current anthropological theory, I argue for a broader understanding of semiosis as inherently both affective and material. Affect theory and new materialism move away from conceptualizations of human subjectivity and cultural construction and toward an ontological framework focused on material entities and vital flows. By meshing their language with that of classic symbolic anthropology, I demonstrate how the materiality of symbols produces and transmits affect and that, indeed, the efficacy of ritual is based on the manipulation of affect. Rather than thinking of signs as delimited representations fixed in structures, I emphasize their indeterminacy and ambiguity as the source of their social efficacy. Drawing on my research on affectively charged material objects in the storage spaces of US homes, I demonstrate that the affective force of these things stems from their open-ended and often unrecognized chains of semiotic associations. Ultimately, I present semiotic affect as a way to return to theorizing the social as an intercorporeal force that precedes the conscious determination of the subject. The sign is an encounter rather than an act of recognition. And it can only be felt or sensed: signs act directly on the nervous system. (Marks 1998:38) Matter can shimmer with undetermined potential and the weight of received meanings.

Cultural Anthropology in 2018: Captivity and Its Unruly Failures

“…Anthropologists examined these unruly behaviors in relation to labor in the United States as well. In a study that anticipated the Marie Kondo decluttering trend of early 2019, Newell (, 1) analyzed hoarding behavior among Americans, showing how people have difficulty getting rid of items because of the unruly “open‐ended and often unrecognized chains of semiotic associations” sparked by the “affectively charged material objects.” Taylor () illuminated the pen‐name strategies romance writers in the United States and Canada use to work within and exceed neoliberal branding logics. Gershon () similarly showed that Americans see the paradoxical nature of neoliberal imperatives where, for example, being a “flexible” worker is incompatible with being the right kind of job candidate, and thus their negotiations of social practices and contingencies exceed reductive neoliberal models.…”

Hackers of the heart: digital sorcery and virtual intimacy in Côte d'Ivoire

“…Indeed, the most effective communications here are the most affective – those that ‘say’ the least but imply the most. The ambiguous potential of the unsaid is akin to magic's exploitation of the unseen, where masking and secrecy are essential for the affective potency of the imaginary (Newell 2018; Taussig 1999), short-circuiting rational logics and enervating the flesh, like the creepy chords of a horror film (Massumi 2010).…”

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“…In 2015, I returned to Côte d'Ivoire to reconnect with my old contacts and to get a sense of how things had changed since the ethnography I performed for The Modernity Bluff (Newell 2012). While cellphones had already been a key symbol of success in 2001, I was stunned by the pervasiveness of smartphones in the daily texture of life, now in visible use everywhere.…”

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