Zur Dialektik von agency und patiency

Abstract

Zur Dialektik von agency und patiency In diesem Beitrag werden die beiden zentralen Begriffe des Symposiums, agency und patiency (respektive passio), zunächst ideengeschichtlich sowie anhand ethnographischer und historischer Beispielen erläutert. Daraufhin wird argumentiert, dass es vor allem die hierarchisch geordnete Dialektik von agency und patiency ist, die in einer auf Standpunkte der Akteure fokussierten Analyse unweigerlich in den Mittelpunkt der Betrachtung rückt. Diese dialektische Beziehung aus emischer Sicht in die Analyse einzubeziehen, stellt, so die These des Artikels und des Symposiums als solches, eine wichtige Ergänzung und Korrektur zu den gängigen agency-versus-structure-Debatten dar.

Migrant Domestic Workers in the Middle East

“…Coined by Schnepel (2009) in reference to Lienhardt, the term "patiency" draws attention to the fact that the experience of suffering and possession are often seen as a prerequisite for the ability to act in an arena that is beyond one's control. Pushed into a specific niche within the highly gendered and racialized global economy of care and as postcolonial subjects who cannot easily cross international borders, Catholic Filipina migrants see themselves in need of the Virgin Mary's intercession to make things possible against all odds.…”

“…From the perspective of the Catholic devotees of Mama Mary in Tel Aviv, the highly gendered and racialized niche of migrant domestic work posits itself as one permeated by possession and suffering, one in which migrant women keep on acting, albeit within an arena (as the women come to understand throughout their journeys) that is clearly beyond their control. The focus on religious practice and ritual performance draws attention to the fact that a notion of "patiency" (Schnepel, 2009), rather than "agency," is possibly better suited to describing women's practices and concepts of the self in an ongoing project of migration.…”

The Anthropology of Suicide: Ethnography and the Tension of Agency

“…The centrality of agency in vernacular definitions of suicide thus stands in tension with equally widespread assumptions about victimhood or "patiency" (Schnepel 2009) in suicide, which hold that the act is caused by influence of agents, forces, or structures located outside the person, such as demons, kin relations, illness, or violence. attempts at locating agency outside of the suicidal person have historically been important in deflecting moral or legal sanction away from the suicidal person or, as we prefer to call them, the suicidé.…”