Parasitic and Symbiotic – The Ambivalence of Necessity

Abstract

This issue of Semiotic Review began accidentally, when, in 2010, we began talking about the possibility of parasites and anthropology for the purpose of putting together a panel for the American Anthropological Association meetings in Montreal, it came out of mulling over the recent turn to "multispecies" anthropology, and reflecting on the role of Anthropology in the contemporary American university. Our interest at the time was to bring together anthropologists from across the field to consider parasites of all sorts: the organic and inorganic, the individual and institutional, the actual and the virtual. What our panelists – many of whom are represented in this issue of Semiotic Review – brought us were papers that did precisely that work, and much of their analyses were soundly within the tradition of semiotics, which opened up the possibility of translating that panel into this issue, and to open up the conversation to others interested in the parasite and its figurations. In this brief introduction, we review our thinking that led to the panel and eventually this issue, thinking that stems from trends in anthropology regarding multispecies analysis and the place of Anthropology more generally. We conclude by offering some suggestions on how parasites might help us thinking about societies, subjects and semiotics.