Ethnographic sorcery:

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 ef...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: West, Harry G. (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Chicago [u.a.] Univ. of Chicago Press 2007
Subjects:
Online Access:Table of contents only
Contributor biographical information
Publisher description
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Summary: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.
Item Description:Includes bibliographical references and index
Physical Description:XIV, 132 S.
ISBN:0226893979
0226893987

There is no print copy available.

Interlibrary loan Place Request Caution: Not in THWS collection! Indexes