What is Existential Anthropology?
There are several possible definitions and concretisations of existential anthropology.
I present existential anthropology as an observation and analysis of existences, in the strict sense of the term: one existence at a time, that of an individual, in its totality, separated from others, in the continuity of its moments. I call this individual a 'volume of being'. In this case, anthropology is less an existentialist reading of social life than a 'volumography' and a 'volumology' based on rigorous methodologies.
The challenge of such an anthropology is well expressed in a comment by Virginia Woolf: “Here I come to one of the memoir writer’s difficulties – one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: ‘This is what happened’; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened?”.
The work presented in this website dates back to 2008, with repetitions but also inflections from one text to another.
For further information or bibliographical references, see www.albertpiette.net
- Existential Art, Learning to Look. An Essay of Radical Anthropology – version bilingue (anglais et français), Lago (It.), Il Sileno Edizioni, 2024 [ebook]. PDF
- The Routledge International Handbook of Existential Human Science (ed. with H. Wardle and N. Rapport), New York-London, Routledge, 2023.
- Theoretical Anthropology or How to Observe a Human Being, London, Iste ; Hoboken, Wiley, 2019. PDF
- Existence in the Details. Theory and Methodology in Existential Anthropology, Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2015. PDF
- Separate Humans. Anthropology, Ontology, Existence, Milan, Mimesis International, 2016. PDF
- What is Existential Anthropology? (ed. with M.D. Jackson), New York-Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2015.
- Eleven Hours and Thirty-Eight Minutes: Extraction, Continuous Filming and Description (with C. Beaugrand), Visual Anthropology, june 2025. PDF
- Volume (with C. Beaugrand), in N. Rapport (ed.), Anthropology's Philosophy: How Anthropology Makes Concepts its Own, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, pp. 59-67. PDF
- Back to the Substance: Interpreting Aristotle for a Radical Anthropology, Agathos: An International Review of the Humanities and Social Sciences, 15, 2 (29), 2024, pp. 17-33. PDF
- The Being-Cyclist: An Essay in Existential Anthropology, Argument, 14, 2024, pp. 107-120. PDF
- Continuous Film, Sculpture, and Mime: a Triple Heuristic to Think the Singularity and Continuity of a Human Being (with C. Beaugrand), Culture-Kairos, june 2024 (online). PDF
- Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle: Essay on the Foundations of an Existential Anthropology, Agathos: An International Review of the Humanities of the Social Sciences, 15, 1(28), 2024, pp. 7-22. PDF
- To Lose or Not to Lose the Human Being, Dialoghi Mediterranei, march 2024 (online). PDF
- Detachment, Hesitation, Indifference: an Anthropology of the Religious Being, Studies in Religion, 2024 (online). PDF
- Pessoa, this Volume of Being: an Anthroplogical Experiment, Pessoa Plural. A Journal of Fernando Pessoa Studies, n° 24, december 2023, pp. 1-16 (online). PDF
- Introduction. Singularity and Continuity, in H. WARDLE, N. RAPPORT and A. PIETTE (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Existential Human Science, New York-London, Routledge, 2023, pp. 239-243. PDF
- Volumology as Existential Anthropology, in H. WARDLE, N. RAPPORT and A. PIETTE (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Existential Human Science, New York-London, Routledge, 2023, pp. 265-274. PDF
- Ethnography and Volumography. Drawings of Theory on the Blackboard, Visual Anthropology, 36 (2), 2023, pp. 95-116. PDF
- Singularity, Form, and Structure. When Metaphysics Helps in Describing a Volume of Being, State of Affairs / Stan Rzeczy, 22 (1), 2022, pp. 153-167. PDF
- An Existential Manifesto Inspired by Alejandra Pizarnik : Autography, Absolute Style and the Anthropologist, Yearbook of the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies, 5, 2021 (online). PDF
- The Sculpture in the Round as a Practice of Disconnection: Art for Thinking Anthropology, seminar University of Hamburg (symposium Unrelating: Infrastructures, Imaginaries and Politics of Disconnection), november, 18, 2021 (with Catherine Beaugrand). PDF
- Lucidians and Credulians: indifference, entity and anthropologicality, International symposium, University of Zurich, Department of Social Anthropology and Empirical Cultural Studies 18-19 October 2019. PDF
- Following and Analyzing a Human Being: On the Continuity and Singularity of an Individual (avec M. KNEUBUHLER), in F. COOREN and F. MALBOIS (eds), Methodological and Ontological Principles of Observation and Analysis. Following and Analysing Things and Beings in our Everyday World, New York - London, Routledge, 2019, pp. 13-43. PDF
- The Anthropogicality of Anthropology, symposium « Existence humaine et singularité. Perspectives croisées : sémiotique et anthropologie », Université de Limoges, 26-28 novembre 2018. PDF
- Theoretical Principles of Anthropology as a Science of Human Beings, Yearbook in Cosmopolitan Studies, 3, 2017 (online). PDF
- The Minimality, Contradictions, and Origin of Indifference, Hau (Debates about ‘Anthropology and the study of contradictions’), 6 (1), 2016, pp. 18-22. PDF
- Details of Detachment and Human Specificity. Lessons of nonhuman primates for the anthropologist, in T. BREYER and T. WIDLOK (eds), The Situationnalty of Human-Animal Relations. Perspectives from Anthropology and Philosophy, Bielefeld, Transcript Verlag, 2018, pp. 69-82. PDF
- Existence, Minimality and Believing, in M.D. JACKSON and A. PIETTE (eds), What is Existential Anthropology?, New York-Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2015, pp. 178-213. PDF
- Relations, Individuals and Presence. A Theoretical Essay, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 140, 2015, pp. 19-34. PDF
- God and the Anthropologist. The Ontological Turn and Human-Oriented Anthropology, Tsantsa, 20, 2015, pp. 34-44. PDF
- Existential Anthropology: What Could it Be? An Interpretation of Heidegger, Argument. Biannual Philosophical journal, vol. 4, 2, 2014, pp. 229-245. PDF
- Anthropologie existentiale, autographie et entité humaine, Londres, Iste Editions, 2022.
- L’être-cycliste, anthropologie triste, Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, Editions Guilhem, 2022. PDF
- Anthropologie théorique ou comment regarder un être humain, Londres, Iste Editions, 2018.
- Le volume humain. Esquisse pour une science de l’homme, Lormont, Le Bord de l’eau, 2017. PDF
- L’humain impensé (avec J.-M. Salanskis), Nanterre, Presses Universitaires de Paris Ouest, 2016. PDF
- Aristote, Heidegger, Pessoa : l’appel de l’anthropologie, Paris, Pétra, 2016. PDF
- Avec Heidegger contre Heidegger. Introduction à une anthropologie de l’existence, Lausanne, L’Age d’Homme, 2014. PDF
- Méditation pessoanienne : science de l’existence et destin de l’anthropologue, Paris, Editions Matériologiques, 2014. PDF
- Contre le relationnisme. Lettre aux anthropologues, Lormont, Le Bord de l’eau, 2014. PDF
- Anthropologie existentiale, Paris, Éditions Pétra, 2009. PDF
- L’acte d’exister. Une phénoménographie de la présence, Marchienne-au-Pont, Socrate Editions, 2009. PDF
- Ontologie et anthropologie existentiale: une éthique du regard. Entretien avec Albert Piette (avec C. Chamois et E. Mahieddin), Revue du MAUSS, 1, 65, 2025, pp. 127-139. PDF
- Epistémologie sculpturale, extraction et volume d'être (avec C. Beaugrand), Ateliers d'anthropologie, 54-55, 2024 (en ligne). PDF
- L’art, la continuité et l’anthropologicalité, p-e-r-f-o-r-m-a-n-c-e.org, 7, 2023 (en ligne) (numéro sur Art and Human). PDF
- L’entité jusqu’au bout. A propos de la question ontologique en anthropologie, Religiologiques, 43, 2022, pp. 91-111. PDF
- Existence et existantisme : de la relation à la relatéité, in F. BASTIANI et J. HANSEL (éds), La vie entre éthique et science, Paris, Editions Manucius, 2021, pp. 59-68. PDF
- Observer l’hésitation, in V. AUBOURG, D. MEINTEL et O. SERVAIS (éds), Ethnographies du catholicisme contemporain, Paris, Karthala, 2021, pp. 65-74. PDF
- Anthropologie existantiale, anthropologie radicale, in M. LEQUIN (éds), Penser l’humain, Nanterre, Presses Universitaires de Paris Nanterre, 2018, pp. 207-227. PDF
- L’anthropologie existantiale, Parcours anthropologiques, 12, 2017, pp. 30-46 (en ligne). PDF
- Anthropologie existentiale et phénoménographie. Observer l’homme en tant qu’il existe, Anthropologie et sociétés, 40, 3, 2016, pp.85-102. PDF
- De la relation à l’existence : sciences sociales ou sciences humaines, Revue du MAUSS, 47, 1, 2016, pp. 135-150 [version numérique allongée : pp. 257-286]. PDF
- Heidegger, le Dasein et l’origine, Alter. Revue de phénoménologie, 23, 2015, pp. 45-62. PDF
- Les enjeux d’une anthropologie existentiale: vigilance et dissection, Recherches qualitatives (Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières), Vol. 33, 1, 2014, pp. 19-40 (en ligne). PDF
- Au cœur de l’activité, au plus près de la présence, Réseaux. Communication-Technologie-Société, novembre-décembre 2013, pp. 57-88. PDF
- Anthropologue de l’existence, existence de l’anthropologue, Revue des sciences humaines, n° 312, octobre-décembre 2013, pp. 145-165. PDF
- Être anthropologue à l’état pratique, ethnographiques.org, n°18, juin 2009 (revue en ligne). PDF
- L’anthropologie existentiale : présence, coprésence et leurs détails, Antrocom. Online Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 4, 2, 2008, pp. 131-138. PDF