Naming and Namelessness

In describing how naming is a universal and critical space in which to understand the nature of recognition, this review argues that the inherent tension between the fixity and flow of the name allows us to better think about the underlying concerns in the study of language, the politics of designation, and anthropology's own reliance on naming practices. By looking to a number of different genealogies in anthropology, the article describes how scholars are increasingly highlighting practices of naming as sites of contestation, revealing naming as an often unsettled and fraught space rather than merely a useful port of entry into the social, as perhaps has too often been the case in the history of the discipline.