Ethnographic Sorcery
1/5
()
About this ebook
According to the people of the Mueda plateau in northern Mozambique, sorcerers remake the world by asserting the authority of their own imaginative visions of it. While conducting research among these Muedans, anthropologist Harry G. West made a revealing discovery—for many of them, West’s efforts to elaborate an ethnographic vision of their world was itself a form of sorcery. In Ethnographic Sorcery, West explores the fascinating issues provoked by this equation.
A key theme of West’s research into sorcery is that one sorcerer’s claims can be challenged or reversed by other sorcerers. After West’s attempt to construct a metaphorical interpretation of Muedan assertions that the lions prowling their villages are fabricated by sorcerers is disputed by his Muedan research collaborators, West realized that ethnography and sorcery indeed have much in common. Rather than abandoning ethnography, West draws inspiration from this connection, arguing that anthropologists, along with the people they study, can scarcely avoid interpreting the world they inhabit, and that we are all, inescapably, ethnographic sorcerers.
Harry G. West
Harry G. West is Reader in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). His research in northern Mozambique has examined how colonialism, revolutionary socialism, and post-socialist political and economic liberalization have reconfigured institutions of local authority.
Related to Ethnographic Sorcery
Related ebooks
Ife, Cradle of the Yoruba A Handbook on the History of the Origin of the Yorubas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsModernization as Spectacle in Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChanneling Knowledges: Water and Afro-Diasporic Spirits in Latinx and Caribbean Worlds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Making of an African King: Patrilineal and Matrilineal Struggle among the Awutu (Effutu) of Ghana Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slave No More: Self-Liberation before Abolitionism in the Americas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving without the Dead: Loss and Redemption in a Jungle Cosmos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSlaves, Spices and Ivory in Zanzibar: Integration of an East African Commercial Empire into the World Economy, 1770–1873 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ethnology of Europe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAbraham Our Father: Paul and the Ancestors in Postcolonial Africa Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Izon of the Niger Delta Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Roots in Reverse: Senegalese Afro-Cuban Music and Tropical Cosmopolitanism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFragments of Ngie Culture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsResistance in an Amazonian Community: Huaorani Organizing against the Global Economy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Knowledge and Power in Morocco: The Education of a Twentieth-Century Notable Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In the Blood of Our Brothers: Abolitionism and the End of the Slave Trade in Spain's Atlantic Empire, 1800–1870 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDid You Know?: Over One Hundred Facts About Haiti and Her Children Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInvisible Agents: Spirits in a Central African History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest New African Poets 2016 Anthology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBody of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Ground Has Shifted: The Future of the Black Church in Post-Racial America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mobility and Migration in Indigenous Amazonia: Contemporary Ethnoecological Perspectives Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Africans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Street Sovereigns: Young Men and the Makeshift State in Urban Haiti Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSocial-Cultural Anthropology: Communication with the African Society Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDani Nabudere's Afrikology: A Quest for African Holism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInto Africa: A Transnational History of Catholic Medical Missions and Social Change Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSacral Grooves, Limbo Gateways: Travels in Deep Southern Time, Circum-Caribbean Space, Afro-creole Authority Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Bride of Christ: Chicaba, an African Nun in Eighteenth-Century Spain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRe-centring Mother Earth: Ecological Reading of Contemporary Works of Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Social Science For You
My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Ethnographic Sorcery
2 ratings0 reviews