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2667:8 [2015/04/28 23:15] – [Is witchcraft in PNG out of control?] Ryan Schram (admin)2667:8 [2021/06/29 02:27] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
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 ~~DECKJS~~ ~~DECKJS~~
  
-# Is witchcraft in PNG out of control? #+# Is Christianity singular or plural? #
  
-## Is witchcraft in PNG out of control? ##+## Is Christianity singular or plural? ##
  
 Ryan Schram Ryan Schram
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 ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au
  
-30 April 2015+27 April 2016
  
 Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2667/8 Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2667/8
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 ### Readings ### ### Readings ###
  
-Jorgensen, Dan. 2014. “Preying on Those Close to Home: Witchcraft Violence in a Papua New Guinea Village.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology [Early View]. doi:10.1111/taja.12105. +Cannell, Fenella. 2005. “The Christianity of Anthropology*.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11 (2): 335–56. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9655.2005.00239.x.
  
-Wesch, Michael. 2007. “A Witch Hunt in New Guinea: Anthropology on Trial.” Anthropology and Humanism 32 (1): 4–17. doi:10.1525/ahu.2007.32.1.4. +Robbins, Joel. 2001. “God Is Nothing but Talk: Modernity, Language, and Prayer in a Papua New Guinea Society.” American Anthropologist, New Series, 103 (4): 901–12.
  
-Schram, Ryan. 2010. “Witches’ Wealth: Witchcraft, Confession, and Christianity in Auhelawa, Papua New Guinea.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 16 (4): 726–42. doi:10.1111/j.1467–9655.2010.01650.x. +### Recommended readings ###
  
-### Other media ###+Cannell, Fenella. 1995. “The Imitation of Christ in Bicol, Philippines.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 1 (2): 377–94. doi:10.2307/3034694.
  
-Allison, April. 2015. “The ‘Women Not Witches’ Project.” Seeds Theatre Group, Inc. Accessed February 15. http://seedstheatre.org/the-women-not-witches-project-2/.+Haynes, Naomi. 2015. “‘Zambia Shall Be Saved!’: Prosperity Gospel Politics in a Self-Proclaimed Christian Nation.” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 19 (1): 5–24. doi:10.1525/nr.2015.19.1.5.
  
-Chandler, Jo. 2013. “It’s 2013, And They’re Burning ‘Witches.’” The Global Mail, February 15. http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/its-2013-and-theyre-burning-witches/558/.+Robbins, Joel. 2007. “Continuity Thinking and the Problem of Christian Culture: Belief, Time, and the Anthropology of Christianity.” Current Anthropology 48 (1): 5–38. doi:10.1086/508690.
  
-The Leniata Legacy. 2015. “The Leniata Legacy: Advocates Against Gender-Based Violence in Papua New Guinea.” Accessed February 15. http://www.leniatalegacy.com/. +### Other media ###
- +
-The Papua New Guinea Post-Courier. 2013. "Time for leaders to condemn sorcery killings." The Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, Editorial, p. 2. February 7. {{:2667:rheeney_-_leniata_kepari_editorial_-_07.02.2013.pdf|PDF copy.}} +
- +
-Stop Sorcery Violence. 2015. "Stop Sorcery Violence in Papua New Guinea." Accessed 29 April. http://www.stopsorceryviolence.org/.  +
- +
-## Witchcraft and sorcery ## +
- +
-Many cultures throughout the world find invisible causes for otherwise +
-material, physical events, like illness, death and misfortune. Let's +
-call any kind of belief of this nature *magic*. +
- +
-E. E. Evans-Pritchard, an anthropologist who studied the people who +
-live in what is today South Sudan, has been very influential in +
-helping anthropologists think about magic in social terms. +
- +
-## Key points about witchcraft and sorcery ## +
- +
-Some key points: +
- +
-* Witchcraft is mentioned every day, and invoked to explain any number of bad things, from minor incidents to death. "Witchcraft is not less anticipated than adultery" (which is also common) (Evans-Pritchard 1976 [1937]: 19). +
-* Witchcraft belief coexists with reason and logic. When the granary collapsed on top of a person, and people saw that termites had eaten away the posts, they reasoned that termites made the granary fall, but a witch made sure it fell on that person at that time (Evans-Pritchard 1976 [1937]: 22). +
-* Witchcraft doesn't explain everything: when people commit certain acts, like lying and adultery, they cannot claim that they have been bewitched (ibid.: 26). Similarly, sickness that results from breaking a taboo is not caused by a witch (ibid.: 28). +
-* Witchcraft comes from an organ; one is born a witch, and one inherits from the mother and mother's brother. Sorcery by contrast is learned. "A witch performs no rite" (ibid.: 1).  +
-* If someone's witchcraft causes death, then the witch is killed in vengence (ibid.: 5).  +
- +
-## Witchcraft and sorcery beliefs are common ## +
- +
-Many societies have very similar beliefs. We can speak of these beliefs as forming a package, because they often go together too. +
- +
-Some key variations: +
- +
-* Is the witch an "insider" or an "outsider"? +
-* Is the witch typically male or female? +
-* Is witchcraft always unintented or just covert? +
- +
-## Witchcraft: a gold mine for social theory ## +
- +
-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 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 exist in an equilibrium, and is part of a process of +
-maintaining social equilibrium. +
- +
-## Witchcraft and social change ## +
- +
-At some point, anthropologists in Africa seemed to arrive at the +
-conclusion that witchcraft accusation was on the rise, along with +
-organized grassroots campaigns for cleansing of witches. A new +
-question was now asked: +
- +
-* Why is there more witchcraft accusation and divination? +
- +
-One important answer:  +
- +
-* New and more frequent accusations to witchcraft are functional +
-  responses to increaing inequality and economic insecurity due to +
-  recent, sudden economic changes. +
- +
-In other words, if old witchcraft should be understood in relation to +
-equilibrium, then new witchcraft should be understood as the result of +
-disequilibrium. +
- +
-I'm sure all this will settle down once everyone is part of a modern, +
-capitalist society... +
- +
-## The unconscious of global capitalism ## +
- +
-In the 90s, anthropologists Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff start +
-to notice something new in the news from South Africa, where they had +
-conducted research for many years (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999): +
- +
-* In March 1996, in a far northeastern village, a baboon, taken to be a +
-  witch in disguise, was killed by "necklacing," the infamous way in +
-  which collaborators were dealt with during the late apartheid +
-  years. (ibid.: 280). +
- +
-* Curious crowds are visiting the Howick Falls, in KwaZulu-Natal, to +
-  glimpse a mysterious 25-foot creature. Absolom Dlamini has not +
-  actually caught sight of it yet. But, he says, there is "a fearsome +
-  spirit here which makes you feel like you are being dragged [in]." +
-  It proves there is a monster down there" (ibid.: +
-  280). [A bustling trade in the sale of monster dolls emerged.] +
- +
-In the midst of stories of a new, post-apartheid South Africa, wire +
-reports mentioned weird and wild stories of witchcraft, sorcery, +
-strange new creatures, illicit trade in children and body parts +
-for magical purposes. +
- +
-Interest in the occult seemed coupled with pyramid schemes and other +
-promises of instant wealth, brought by God. It was an **occult +
-economy**: The deployment of magical ideas and practices in relation +
-to practical, economic ends. People believed that witches and many +
-other occult beings were profiting from the global economy in +
-invisible ways. Why would a belief in an "occult economy" emerge now? +
- +
-## Why "occult economy"? ## +
- +
-Structural-functionalist saw new kinds of magical beliefs as symptoms +
-of social dysfunction. +
- +
-Comaroff and Comaroff take a different approach in which the idea of +
-an occult economy is a product of their own alienation. +
- +
-The new occult beliefs are **not** extensions of traditional beliefs, +
-but a new set of ideas about causality and responsibility altogether. +
- +
-## Meanwhile in PNG ## +
- +
-Witchcraft and sorcery beliefs are also found widely in the cultures +
-of Melanesia and Polynesian, including Papua New Guinea. +
- +
-There are many terms for many different magical ideas: +
- +
-* puripuri +
-* sangguma  +
-* werabana (female 'witchcraft'), barau (male 'sorcery') +
-* vada +
-* blakpawa +
-* wiskrap +
- +
-Sorcery was banned in 1971 until 2013. +
- +
-## Ryan talks about sorcery and other evils in PNG ## +
- +
-http://rschram.org/2015/02/12/haus-man-haus-krai/ +
- +
-http://rschram.org/2014/02/10/haus/ +
- +
-## References ## +
  
-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.+Jenkins, Philip. 2002. “The Next Christianity.” The Atlantic, October. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/10/the-next-christianity/302591/.
  
-Evans-Pritchard, E. E., and Eva Gillies. 1976. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Abridged edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.+Schram, Ryan. 2014. “A New Government Breaks With The Past in The Papua New Guinea Parliament’s ‘Haus Tambaran.’” Material World: A Global Hub for Thinking about Things. February 9. http://www.materialworldblog.com/2014/02/a-new-government-breaks-with-the-past-in-the-papua-new-guinea-parliaments-haus-tambaran/.
  
-Fortune, R. F. 2013. Sorcerers of Dobu: The Social Anthropology of the Dobu Islanders of the Western Pacific. Routledge.+## Lecture outline ##
  
-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.+* Easter around the world
  
-Wilson, Monica Hunter. 1951. “Witch Beliefs and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology 56 (4): 307–13.+* Christianity and colonialism  
 +  * Spanish colonialism of the New World 
 +  * 19th century British colonialism and the concept of "native protection" 
 +  * Christianity in postcolonial PNG and elsewhere
  
 +* Christianity and anthropology
 +  * Fenella Cannell in southern Luzon, Philippines
 +  * Joel Robbins in Urapmin, Papua New Guinea
  
 +* Christianity as culture
 +  * The language ideology of Christianity
 +  * The conflict of individualism and relationalism as values
  
  
2667/8.1430288100.txt.gz · Last modified: 2015/04/28 23:15 by Ryan Schram (admin)