Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment

388 Pages·2003·21.998 MB·English

by  Birgit Meyer, Peter Pels

MAGIC AND MODERNITY

Magic and Modernity
Inteifaces ofR evelation and Concealment
Edited by B I R G I T M E Y E R and P E T E R P E L S
STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA
2003
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2003 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved
Publication of this book was made possible in part by a
grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
Research (NWO).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Magic and modernity : interfaces of revelation and
concealment I edited by Birgit Meyer and Peter Pels.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-8047-4463-7 - ISBN 0-8047-4464-5
1. Magic. 2. Divination. 3. Witchcraft. 4. Spiritualism.
I. Meyer, Birgit. II. Pels, Peter.
GN475·3 .M34 2003
306.4-dcZl 2oo20I475I
Original Printing 2003
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
I2 II IO 09 08 07 06 05 04 03
Typeset by Classic Typography in 10II4 Janson
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Vll
Introduction: Magic and Modernity I
Peter Pels
I. Between Science and Superstition: Religion and the Modern
Subject of the Nation in Colonial India 39
Gyan Prakash
2. Undying Past: Spirit Possession and the Memory of War
in Southern Mozambique 6o
Alcinda Honwana
3· Robert Kaplan and ''Juju Journalism" in Sierra Leone's
Rebel War: The Primitivizing of an African Conflict 81
Rosalind Shaw
4· The Citizen's Trance: The Haitian Revolution and the
Motor of History 103
Laurent Dubois
5· Hidden Forces: Colonialism and the Politics of Magic
in the Netherlands Indies 129
Margaret]. Wiener
6. On Witch Doctors and Spin Doctors: The Role of "Experts"
in African and American Politics 159
Peter Geschiere
7· The Magical Power of the (Printed) Word 183
Martha Knplan
vi Contents
8. Ghanaian Popular Cinema and the Magic in and of Film 200
Birgit Meyer
9· Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Modern Medicine Between Magic
and Science 223
Jojada Verrips
10. Spirits of Modernity: Alfred Wallace, Edward Tylor,
and the Visual Politics of Fact 241
Peter Pels
II. Viscerality, Faith, and Skepticism: Another Theory of Magic 272
Michael Taussig
Notes 3°7
References 343
Contributors 375
Index 379
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is the result of the conference Magic and Modernity that we orga
nized in June 1997 at the University of Amsterdam. Apart from a small sub
sidy from the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KNAW), the conference was
largely funded by the Research Centre Religion and Society, Department of
Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam. We thank our col
leagues at Religion and Society at the time-Gerd Baumann, Peter van
Rooden, Patricia Spyer, and Peter van der Veer-for their characteristically
generous intellectual and material support of our initiative. With two excep
tions (Pels's introduction and his contribution to this book), all chapters
in this volume are based on the presentations given during the conference
by the authors. However, the conference would not have been such a suc
cess, nor would the book have been composed in the same way, without the
contributions-as paper presenters or as discussants-of Misty Bastian, Wim
van Binsbergen, Filip de Boeck, Penelope Gouk, Edwina Hagen, Wouter
Hanegraaff, Ute Luig, Tanya Luhrmann, Gananath Obeyesekere, Stephan
Palmie, Peter van Rooden, Lyn Schumaker, Patricia Spyer, and Peter van der
Veer. The production of a formally coherent manuscript would not have been
possible without the support of Ingrid van de Broek and Nienke Muurling.
We thank Brad Weiss, Vincent Crapanzano, and an anonymous reader for
Stanford University Press for their enthusiastic and perceptive comments on
the manuscript. At the Press, Nathan MacBrien expedited the review
process, even when faced with a manuscript that was far too long yet (ac
cording to both readers and editors) could not be reduced to a smaller size
we thank Nathan for being so efficient and flexible. That problem was
solved with a subsidy from the Internationalization Fund of theNe therlands
Acknowledg;ments
VIU
Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), for which we are very grateful.
From the time of the manuscript's acceptance by the Press, Helen Tartar and
Norris Pope took over from Nathan to expertly guide it into print. Last, we
thank the University of Minnesota Press for the permission to reprint
Michael Taussig's "Viscerality, Faith, and Skepticism: Another Theory of
Magic" from Nicholas B. Dirks, ed., In Near Ruins: Cultural Theory at the End
oft he Century (Minneapolis and London, 1998) in modified form.
MAGIC AND MODERNITY