The Latour event: history, symmetry and diplomacy This paper discusses the use of the concept of ‘event’ in Latour’s work, in relation to how the term has been used in philosophy and anthropology. My contention is that ultimately, there is a tension between two strands of Latour’s work: one more firmly based on history and the event, and another more focused on symmetry, hybridity and diplomacy. Key words Latour, event, history, symmetry, hybridity Introduction The impact of Bruno Latour’s thought in anthropology is not a new thing. On the contrary, he has been quite influential for more than a decade. I first encountered Bruno Latour in the late nineties, when I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Marshall Sahlins had invited him to teach at Chicago for a term. Sahlins had recently published an essay where he was proposing a ‘Native anthropology of Western cosmology’ (Sahlins 1996). There he discussed a common theme of ‘Western cosmology’, the notion of a dual humanity, divided in a human individual ‘nature’ driven by desire and need, as opposed to a constructed, artificial society, built to domesticate, repress and contain this human nature. His objective was to show the pervasive influence of this theme in contemporary social theory, not just in naturalist or evolutionary approaches, but even in supposedly constructivist and critical ones, like Bourdieu and Foucault, who for Sahlins, deep down, still held this Western vision of society as a repressive artifice built to control human nature and desire. Latour was also very critical of the reductionism of ‘critical’ authors like Bourdieu, and Sahlins hoped to find in him an alternative to the pervasive influence of dualist theories. Could he be the next ‘big thing’ after critical theory, an ‘event’ in the history of anthropology? And yet, this encounter did not result in a common project; there was from the begin- ning a very clear difference between Sahlins and Latour. For Sahlins is a passionate defender of the notion of culture, while for Latour it doesn’t make any sense to question ‘nature’ if we maintain its symmetrical opposite, ‘culture’: we have to do away with both; we can’t discuss the multiplicity of cultures or cosmologies while ignoring or simply ‘bracketing out’ questions of truth and access to the real. Anthropologists needed to ‘cross the courtyard’ and discuss with physicists. But Sahlins, Latour regrets, wasn’t much inter- ested in the opinion of scientists across the courtyard (Latour 2007: 18). Sahlins, on the other hand, was a bit disappointed with Latour’s dismissal of the notion of culture. In any case, Latour and Sahlins still have a quite courteous and respectful relation, and they reference each other normally in positive terms: Sahlins mentions Latour’s 448 Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale (2013) 21, 4 448–461. © 2013 European Association of Social Anthropologists. doi:10.1111/1469-8676.12043 ROGER SANSI