French Literature Reviews - 2026
T. Ingold, Marcher avec les dragons
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Tim Ingold, Marcher avec les dragons
Translated from English by Pierre Madelin.
Éditions Zones sensibles
November 2013, 368 pages
ISBN: 978 293 060 109 0
Publisher's Overview
"I believe there is a dragon among us today, and it is growing to such proportions that it is becoming increasingly difficult to adopt a sustainable way of life. This dragon inhabits the rift we have created between the world and our imagination. Experience tells us that this rift is not viable, but we refuse to acknowledge its existence because doing so would force us to question conventional scientific rationality. I believe this recognition is long overdue.
I believe that the study of medieval monasticism and what are called indigenous ontologies could help us read and write differently, and thereby once again seek counsel from the voices of the pages and those of the world around us, to listen and learn from what they tell us, and to mend the breach between being and knowing. This mending must be a first step toward embracing a more sustainable way of life." Tim Ingold
Following *Une brève histoire des lignes*, *Marcher avec les dragons* is the second book by Tim Ingold published by Zones sensibles. It is an anthology compiled by the author for French-speaking readers, featuring most of the English anthropologist's major writings alongside more recent texts.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Culture, Nature, Environment: Towards an Ecology of Life
1. Beyond Biology and Culture
An Anthropologist's View of Biology
"As We Are": The Concept of Anatomically Modern Man
Beyond Biology and Culture: The Meaning of Evolution in a Relational World
2. Animal Milieu and Human Milieu
Culture and the Perception of the Environment
Building, Dwelling, Living: How Humans and Animals Construct Their Dwellings in the World
Point, Line, Counterpoint: From Environment to Fluid Space
3. Weaving and Making
Weaving a Basket
The Textility of Making
The Conical Hut at the Center of the Earth-Sky World
4. The Art of Anthropology
The Art of Translation in a Continuous World
The Poetics of Tool Use: From Technology, Language, and Intelligence to Craft, Song, and Imagination
Anthropology is not Ethnography
Epilogue
Marcher avec les dragons: An Anthropological Excursion to the Wild Side
Notes
Bibliography
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Index
Tim Ingold is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen.
* * *
An article on this work can be read on the website laviedesidees.fr:
"Tim Ingold, or the Art of Anthropology".
as well as an interview with the author:
This collection brings together major writings and recent texts by the British anthropologist Tim Ingold, translated from English by Pierre Madelin and published by Éditions Zones sensibles. Following Une brève histoire des lignes, the volume is arranged into thematic sections addressing the relations between biology and culture, animal and human milieus, and the practices of weaving and crafting, as outlined in the table of contents and publisher's overview.
Readers interested in environmental anthropology, human ecology, and relational approaches to culture and perception may find this volume relevant. Within the broader tradition of social anthropology, works of this nature engage with questions concerning how human societies relate to their natural surroundings, bridging discussions between ethnography, philosophy, and the study of human techniques and material practices.