Description
Book Synopsis This book seeks a reconsideration of the phenomenon of sorcery and related categories. The contributors to the volume explore the different perspectives on human sociality and social and political constitution that practices typically understood as sorcery, magic and ritual reveal. In doing so the authors are concerned to break away from the dictates of a western externalist rationalist understanding of these phenomena without falling into the trap of mysticism. The articles address a diversity of ethnographic contexts in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and the Americas.
Trade Review "…Kapferer’s introduction is an intellectual tour de force, perhaps the most important rethinking of the problems of rationality that underlie the study of witchcraft and sorcery since Evans-Pritchard." · American Anthropologist
"…teems with interesting theoretical insights, and all the chapters are particularly strong in delineating local meanings within the framework of broader processes." · African Studies Review
"... shows that the discourses on 'occult economies' are multiple ... The presented essays are an excellent illustration of their variety of forms and constitute a valuable contribution to their understanding." · Anthropos
Table of Contents Introduction: Outside All Reason - Magic, Sorcery and Epistemology in Anthropology
B. Kapferer
Chapter 1. Anthroposophy and Voodoo in Dominican-Haitian Borderlands
M. Brendbekken
Chapter 2. The Smell of Death: Theft, Disgust and Ritual Practice in Central Lombok, Indonesia
K.G. Telle
Chapter 3. Sorcery, Modernity and the Constitutive Imaginary: Hybridising Continuities
B. Kapferer
Chapter 4. The Sorcerer as the Absented Third Person: Formations of Fear and Anger in Vanuatu
K. Rio
Chapter 5. Sorcerous Technologies and Religious Innovation in Sri Lanka
R. Bastin
Chapter 6. Maleficent Fetishes and the Sensual Order of the Uncanny in South West Congo
R. Devisch
Chapter 7. Fantasy in Practice: Projection and Ontrojection, or the Witch and the Spirit-Medium
M. Lambek
Chapter 8. The Discourse of 'Ritual Murder': Popular Reaction to Political Leaders in Botswana
O. Gulbrandsen
Chapter 9. Strange Fruit: The South African Truth Commission and Demonic Economies of Violence
A. Feldman
Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index
