The approach to masks and masking developed in this chapter reflects a particular mode of anthropological imagination, one that is not unlike the workings of the masks themselves.

Masks are artifacts of connection: through mimesis, they bind the here-and-now of their presence to spirits and life force, state power and advertising, regimes of knowledge and conditions of truth.

Masks also serve as media for representing and negotiating historical change. Through masked performances, embodied subjects navigate changing ideologies, economic conditions, or governing structures, seeking to reconfigure their place within them. In this sense, masks are also tools for envisioning new forms of being and becoming in the world.

And anthropology does something similar. To imagine and craft better worlds, it begins by decentering taken-for-granted frameworks and historically grounding its objects of analysis. Like masks, anthropological texts then must draw connections: they should understand the here-and-now as an entry point into a society and its historical Zeitgeist. And like masks, anthropologists produce knowledge to better grasp and negotiate major historical transformations.

In this light, there is value in donning, however briefly, the mask of an anthropological imagination.

Author: George-Paul Meiu

Further Reading

Creed, G. W. (2011). Masquerade and Postsocialism: Ritual and Cultural Dispossession in Bulgaria. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Edson, G. (2005). Masks and Masking: Face of Tradition and Belief Worldwide. London: McFarland & Co.

Van Beek, W. & Leyten, H. M. (Eds). (2023). Masquerades in African Society: Gender, Power, Identity. Suffolk: James Currey.