Witchcraft as a case of ethnographic murk

Impasse of knowledge, harshness of experience

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2402863
AutoresR Beneduce (0000-0001-7468-6648, University of Turin, autor correspondente), Simona Taliani (0000-0002-7003-1959, University of Naples - L'Orientale)
Ano2024
Volume25
Fascículo4
Páginas428-448
Data de publicação2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEthnography (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1466-1381 • E-ISSN: 1741-2714
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/14661381241264029
OpenAlexW4404554768
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas36

Witchcraft has been described as knowledge that resists knowledge. Drawing on our field research on witchcraft, alienation, and violence in Mali and southern Cameroon as well as with migrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa, we consider two main issues. The first concerns the epistemic challenge of 'witchcraft' and its satellite notions (mystical weapons, animal metamorphosis, fetish and so forth). We analyse this 'challenge' beyond the problems of translation, both as a particular expression of African perspectivism and an unending struggle concerning epistemic sovereignty. The second issue directly originates from our field research. Prudently, we will try to give a new lease of life to an ethnographic material, studied 20 years ago. We would turn back to some drawings made by students at the primary school of Mbom (Sangmelina, southern Cameroon), and explore the power of what we provisionally define as 'visual utterances

Aesthetics · Alienation · Epistemology · Ethnography · Field (mathematics · Perspectivism · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Sovereignty · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Law · Philosophy