Epilogue

Abstract

The epilogue sums up the methodological points of the book. I have argued for an open methodology in two ways. In the empirical field, the ethnographer learns through what I call cultural learning processes that consist of four processes: learning through social designation, practice-based learning, learning from culture contrast and scalar learning leading to zone of development. Ethnographers write descriptions based on this evolving engagement with the empirical field. Yet, for the writing to be anthropological, I argue that we need to know more about the processes that make us recognise other humans as cultural. An anthropology of learning does not just concern the craft of the ethnographer; it attempts to open up for a theory of the basic process of cultural forces, which create our times as Anthropocene. Though words have been given a privileged position as anchors for meaning, I sum up the anthropology of learning by arguing that all materials can become anchors for human thinking. Material artefacts, as relata-within-phenomena, are anchors of collective and social thoughts. Theories of the posthuman must consider these aspects of human learning processes in order to make clear what post in posthuman theorising covers. Anthropology, as the basic study of humankind, has the key to understanding how humans, permeated by cultural forces, transform a geometrical place into varied practiced places.