Social Anthropology/Anthropologie Sociale (2022): 1–18 © Te Author(s) doi:10.3167/saas.2022.101701 Published on behalf of the European Association of Social Anthropologists DIANA ESPÍRITO SANTO, MARJORIE MURRAY AND PAULINA SALINAS Ways of Not-Knowing in Neoliberal Chile Notes Towards a Dark Anthropology Abstract: Trough two signifcantly distinct ethnographic case studies, both based in Santi- ago, Chile, we argue for the need to attend to experiences which are not conceptualised by our interlocutors, or that remain ‘dark’ in terms of their ontological and representational proper- ties. We point out that anthropology has been ill-equipped to deal with these inefable mar- gins, and point to conceptual arches which could be used transversally in what we call a ‘dark anthropology’. Te two felds in question here are the ufological ‘absurd’ and early mothering experiences among low-income communities. What both have in common is that they defy anthropological fgure-ground logics, where experiences are explained via their social con- texts. We argue for an anthropology that can come to grips with non-linear, sometimes dark, socialities. Keywords: inefable, mothering, negative theology, paradox, ufology Is it possible to do an anthropology of the inefable from the perspective of what is not said, not communicated, or what remains essentially in the dark? What happens when our interlocutors themselves reach this impasse? What remains for anthropological thought? We defne the inefable here as that which is beyond discursive or categorical experience, but which has grounding in perceptual and bodily processes nonetheless. Te inefable in this text is not the spiritual, or tran- scendent, necessarily. It is the acategorical: that which does not ft into rational models of explanation or even religious rationalisations, which is not accessible. It is the apophatic, unspeakable, in theological terms, but that can have physi- cal symptoms nevertheless. Trough two radically diferent case studies based in Chile – ufology and mothering among low-income communities – we will argue that it is possible to delineate the conceptual tools to describe what Roy Wagner argues as the ‘third way’ or ‘dimensionless point’ (2010: 165), and that these can be transversally applicable. Te radical separateness of these examples is evidence for the need to develop a dark anthropology that can serve more than one feld. Anthropology has not dealt especially well with states of not-knowing, be these manifest as the peripheral, incomplete, unsaid, elusive or simply opaque (Martínez et al 2021). One way to understand these is as cultural ‘others’. Te This article is available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license as part of Berghahn Open Anthro, a subscribe-to-open model for APC-free open access made possible by the journal’s subscribers.