The Anthropology of Intensity

"What is it that makes a person blush when about to speak in front of a crowd? What makes children immerse themselves in digging in dirt for hours? And how can an entire room suddenly feel restless and warm at the imminence of a yet unknown occurrence? The anthropology of intensity studies the manner in which humans encounter the continuous and gradable features of phenomena in social life and attempt to evaluate or convert them into discrete dimensions. Focusing on the last twenty years of life in a Mayan village in the cloud forests of Guatemala, this book provides a natural history of intensity in exceedingly tense times, through a careful analysis of ethnographic and linguistic evidence. It uses intensity as a way to reframe the discipline of Anthropology in the age of the Anthropocene, and rethinks classic work in the formal linguistic tradition from a culture-specific and context-sensitive stance"--