Naming the Witch explores the recent series of witchcraft
accusations and killings in East Java, which spread as the Suharto
regime slipped into crisis and then fell. After many years of
ethnographic work focusing on the origins and nature of violence in
Indonesia, Siegel came to the conclusion that previous
anthropological explanations of witchcraft and magic, mostly based
on sociological conceptions but also including the work of E.E.
Evans-Pritchard and Claude Levi-strauss, were simply inadequate to
the task of providing a full understanding of the phenomena
associated with sorcery, and particularly with the ideas of power
connected with it. Previous explanations have tended to see
witchcraft in simple opposition to modernism and modernity
(enchantment vs. disenchantment). The author sees witchcraft as an
effect of culture, when the latter is incapable of dealing with
accident, death, and the fear of the disintegration of social and
political relations. He shows how and why modernization and
witchcraft can often be companiens, as people strive to name what
has hitherto been unnameable.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!