Anthropological research involves a process called recursion. Defined
as conditions under which “events continually enter into, become en-
tangled with, and then re-enter the universe they describe” (Harries-
Jones 1995 , 3 ) recursion leads to deutero-learning that presses one to
exceed the boundaries of not only disciplines and categories but also
a normative or rational self, and to accept particular kinds of faith-
fulness to experience and to ethics. To exceed boundaries is to ac-
cess hitherto-unknown territory. From that point on, “apprehend-
ing the world is not a matter of construction but of engagement, not
of building but of dwelling, not of making a view of the world but of
taking up a view in it” (Ingold 1996 , 121 ; Poirier 2004 , 61 ; empha-
sis in original).
In “Recursive Epistemologies and an Ethics of Attention,” Debo-
rah Bird Rose draws upon her rich research experience with Austra-
lian Aborigines to demonstrate how, step by fateful step, an anthro-
pological practice located in the real here and now of encounter takes
us into the heart of an Aboriginal homeland and the people intimately
associated with it. Rose argues convincingly that her own connectivi-
ties or entanglements with Debbie, a true Aboriginal mentor, became
constitutive of her own personhood, and, as such, entered into her re-
search in unexpected ways. She notes that having crossed an epistemo-
logical threshold, the process of discovering the spiritual dimensions
of Aboriginal lives called her into fidelity, into change, into question.
To understand the transformation lived in the field, she finds Bates-
on’s concept of recursive epistemology useful because it speaks to our
Part Two
Entanglements and Faithfulness to Experience