On being-with: Critical reflections on Heideggerian ethics in anthropological discourse

Abstract

The reception of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy within anthropology has often centred on his concept of being-in-the-world, a concept that has proven fruitful for exploring human entanglements with others and their environments. Much of this work draws on the first division of Being and Time and on Heidegger’s later writings, with relatively little attention paid to the political dimensions of his thought. While his affiliation with Nazism does not invalidate his philosophical insights, engaging more directly with the political resonances of his work can open up new avenues of inquiry. In my own research on historical trauma among children of Holocaust survivors in North America, I turn to the second division of Being and Time to suggest that, from a phenomenological perspective, certain forms of mystified historical consciousness may underwrite right-wing political imaginaries. This ethnographic case study offers one way of engaging the second division that avoids both the repetition of well-worn anthropological-phenomenological motifs—such as the centrality of intersubjectivity—and the disavowal of Heidegger’s widely acknowledged political commitments.