Beyond Rationalism: Rethinking Magic, Witchcraft and Sorcery

This volume aims to transcend previous anthropological theories of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery as rational mechanisms for releasing social tensions and explanating misfortune, or as psychological expressions of desire. Kapferer suggests, rather, that these beliefs and practices have potency because they stand apart from everyday reason and engage the human imagination. He argues that they thrive in "phantasmagoric" spaces that do not represent external realities but have their own logic.

Though only four of the nine ethnographic chapters focus on Africa, the entire volume speaks to Africanist concerns. On the non-African side, Brendbekker discusses the Dominican–Haitian borderland as a hybridizing space where NGO-affiliated anthroposophists, who reject scientific rationalism, interact with vodou-practicing peasants. She shows how the peasants readily incorporate new practices such as biodynamic preparations. Telle maintains that Indonesian Muslims view theft within local communities as blurring social boundaries and as generating a foul smell. The accused are brought before the tomb of a Muslim saint, a "space of death," where they swear an oath of innocence and drink water mixed with soil from the grave. Turning to Sri Lanka, Kapferer and Bastin argue that Sri Lankan sorcery shrines have become increasingly significant in times of globalization and civil war. They show how Sinhalese Buddhists perform ritual exorcisms at the temples of Suniyama and even of Kali (a fierce Hindu goddess) to protect themselves and to turn sorcery back against the perpetrators. The supplicants attack business rivals and unfaithful spouses and revenge the death of children who died in war. Both authors see innovation as an important attribute of sorcery. Unlike stable, text-based rituals, they argue, sorcery is continuously reinvented. Rio looks at the sorcerer on the Melanesian island of Vanuatu as an absent third person who conditions the circumstances of other people's relations. He also suggests that sorcery represents a return in people's lives of customary justice from the past.

The last four chapters deal with Africa. Devisch and Lambek both address psychoanalytic themes. Devisch explores the force of fetishes in Kinshasha. He argues that their potency lies in the complex links they establish between sensuous imagery and other subliminal processes, showing, too, how maleficent fetishes can mobilize fears that subordinate the body. Lambek demonstrates the relevance of the concepts of projection and introjection for understanding witchcraft and spirit possession in Mayotte. Whereas people project unacceptable desires onto the witch, spirit possession enables them to selectively incorporate qualities from outside that might otherwise be too overwhelming.

Essays by Gulbrandsen and Feldman explore different "demonic economies of violence" in southern Africa. Gulbrandsen examines rumors about the ritual murder of a schoolgirl in Botswana who allegedly was killed by businessmen and politicians wishing to strengthen themselves for upcoming elections. He analyzes these rumors in the contexts of growing social inequality and of bureaucratic procedures that remove decision-making from public forums. Feldman shows the incredible banality of political executions in apartheid South Africa. Agents of the apartheid state killed and burned the bodies of black political activists while socializing at barbecues. He links these executions to earlier forms of coercion, such as the beatings of farm laborers. Black South Africans, however, understood such violence in terms of mystical pollution.

Beyond Rationalism teems with interesting theoretical insights, and all the chapters are particularly strong in delineating local meanings within the framework of broader processes. However, I found the lack of in-depth ethnographic case material somewhat disappointing; sometimes, indeed, there seemed to be a disjuncture between theory and ethnography. For example, Bastin argues that sorcery is not a symptom of social pathology, but in most of the case material sorcery comes to the fore in situations of crisis. The volume also glosses over the relationship between kinship and the occult—an extremely important Africanist concern. I also feel that the material on eastern shrines and temples supports Kapferer's argument about "phantasmogoric"spaces better than the studies of African fetishes, spirit possession, and torture sites do. The latter frequently represent desires, memories, and even contemporary realities. Beyond Rationalism nonetheless opens up new ground in scholarly debates about the occult and everyday life.