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1002:4.1.1 [2019/10/17 20:31] – [Functionalist explanations of society—You're soaking in them!] Ryan Schram (admin)1002:4.1.1 [2019/10/20 20:46] – [The function of witchcraft] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 Social anthropologists loved talking about witchcraft and sorcery. It seemed a perfect test case for their ideas about social **function**: Social anthropologists loved talking about witchcraft and sorcery. It seemed a perfect test case for their ideas about social **function**:
  
-* Witchcraft and sorcery functions in relation to ideas about egalitarianism. Only equals bewitch each other (Fortune 1932).+* Witchcraft and sorcery function in relation to a society's egalitarian ideology. People bewitch their social equals out of jealousy that they might be gaining prestige and authority (Fortune 1932).
 * Witchcraft is a way of mediating social conflicts (Nadel 1952). * Witchcraft is a way of mediating social conflicts (Nadel 1952).
 * Witchcraft is a collective representation of deviance itself, the "standardized nightmare" of the society (Wilson 1951: 313). * Witchcraft is a collective representation of deviance itself, the "standardized nightmare" of the society (Wilson 1951: 313).
  
-Witchcraft exist in an equilibrium, and is part of a process of +<table> 
-maintaining social equilibrium.+<tr> 
 +<td> 
 +Witchcraft exist in an equilibrium, and is part of a process of</td> 
 +<td>maintaining social equilibrium.</td> 
 +</tr> 
 +</table>
  
 ## Witchcraft has not gone away ## Witchcraft has not gone away
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 Some, like Comaroff and Comaroff (1999), argue that they are not a belief in magic at all, but a diagnosis of the real workings of neoliberal global capitalism in Africa.  Some, like Comaroff and Comaroff (1999), argue that they are not a belief in magic at all, but a diagnosis of the real workings of neoliberal global capitalism in Africa. 
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 +## References
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 +Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 1999. “Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony.” American Ethnologist 26 (2): 279–303. doi:10.1525/ae.1999.26.2.279.
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 +Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (1937) 1976. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Abridged edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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 +Fortune, R. F. (1932) 2013. Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge.
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 +Nadel, S. F. 1952. “Witchcraft in Four African Societies: An Essay in Comparison.” American Anthropologist 54 (1): 18–29. doi:10.1525/aa.1952.54.1.02a00040.
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 +Wilson, Monica Hunter. 1951. “Witch Beliefs and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 56 (4): 307–13.
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