Aurelie Nevot | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research (original) (raw)

1. Current position
• Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) (full-time position since 2006)
habilitated to supervise research (HDR)
2. Current Research Interests
• About Anthropology:
Anthropology of religion––Anthropology of Writing––Ethno-Anthropology (Theories, methodology, Epistemology)––Ethnopolitics––Media Anthropology and Anthropology of mediation––Metaphysics––Ritualism and sacrifice rites (bloody rites)––Sino Anthropology--Writing and orality
• About China:
Chinese Religions––Mediumnism––Rites–– Shamanism and neoshamanism––Transmission––Yi people (Yi Nationality)––Voice (orality)––Chinese Writings --Zomia
• About transdisciplinary topics:
Architecture––Metaphysics––Museum (museology, museography)––Patrimonalisation––Transmission––Writing and orality––World Expos

3. Education
• University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre, France
2003. Ph. D. (summa cum laude), Ethnology, Anthropology. Dissertation director: Brigitte Baptandier (CNRS).
• School for Advance Studies in the Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS)), Paris, France
2017. Habilitation thesis (monographical), Ethnology, Anthropology. Supervisor: Prof. Descola (Collège de France).

4. Employment history
• Research Assistant at the University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre (1999-2004)• Researcher at the CNRS (Level 2) at the School for Advance Stdies in the Social Sciences––EHESS, Paris (2006-2008)
• Researcher at the CNRS (Level 2) at the Centre for Himalayan Studies, Paris-Villejuif (2008-2010)
• Researcher at the CNRS (Level 1) at the Centre for Himalayan Studies, Paris-Villejuif (2010-today)

5. Honors and Prizes
• Eugène Fleischmann Prize (Société d’ethnologie), University of Paris Ouest-Nanterre (2003), http://www.mae.u-paris10.fr/societe-ethnologie/bourse-presentation.php

  1. My research primarily concerns anthropology of religion and anthropology of writing as far as my work is based on the study of a scriptural shamanism that has emerged in southwestern China (Yunnan Province). Four single authored books (monographs published in French (2008, 2013 & forthcoming) and in English (forthcoming)) present the anthropological results of the fieldwork I conduct since 1998. From there, three axes of analysis have been defined:
    a. The first focuses on writing: shamanistic, secret, chanted, ritual and sacrificial, but also urban and political.
    b. The second deals with the body: dead, ancestral, infantile, mediumnistic, shamanistic, sacrificial and spiritual (divine).
    c. The third is about transmission processes: the relationship master-disciple on which I edited a collective and interdisciplinary book in 2013; I also questioned what it means to transmit knowledge and power among shamans and mediums—I organized a seminar on this topic from 2010 to 2012.

  2. The acculturation processes generated by Chinese political authorities in order to transform this scriptural shamanism and to place it under their control have prompted me to question Chinese cultural politics. Hence the other side of my research: “cultures and institutions” (cultural policies) that essentially counts two axes:
    a. I first carried out research about Chinese ethnopolitics and about acculturation processes developed by the central power and by the Catholic religion, the latter, established in Yunnan since 1860s, having concurrently gendered inculturation phenomenon.
    b. This analysis is included in a more overall reflection about patrimonialization in contemporary China with “museumification” of Chinese minorities and the development of New Confucianism linked to the notion of “universal” introduced and redefined by Chinese through the Shanghai World Expo 2010. A monographical book, published in 2014, is devoted to this subject.

  3. Lastly, I discuss contemporary anthropological theories, the link between anthropology and philosophy, and I develop comparative perspectives with other cultural areas. I provide two approaches to this subject:
    a. By introducing the concept of transsubstantialism, I propose to address the notion of ritual structure by taking into account not so much the abstract relationship it supposes but what constitutes this relationship, its materiality, and thus what permits to maintain this structure. It deals at the same time with movements, dynamics and essences carried by the latter, that is to say transsubstances.
    b. I develop research about museum architectures and ideologies by paying attention to the cultures in which they are conceived and introduced, and to the symbolism to which they may refer. Along with Shanghai where the Chinese government plans to build a dozen of museums over the next several years, I have developed a new exploratory fieldwork in Abu Dhabi (2014-2016) to question the creation of a “universal museum”, that is to say the Louvre Abu Dhabi.
    Address: La Grande Vallée, Bourgogne

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