1st Edition

Witchcraft Accusations from Central India The Fragmented Urn

By Helen Macdonald Copyright 2021
304 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge India

304 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge India

304 Pages 3 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge India

This book unravels the institutions surrounding witchcraft in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh through theoretical and empirical research on witchcraft, violence and modernity in contemporary times. The author pieces together ‘fragments’ of stories gathered utilising ethnographic methods to examine the meanings associated with witches and witchcraft, and how they connect with social... Read more

List of illustrations. 1 Scattered fragments: An introduction of sorts 2 Reflections from the field 3 The colonial project 4 Anthropology overcoming its inheritance 5 Crafting witches 6 Resolution and rupture 7 Policing witches 8 Headlines and by-lines 9 Rationality and disenchanting belief 10 Law and disorder 11 Remaking social worlds 12 Postscript. References. Index

 

Biography

Helen Macdonald is an anthropologist with a BA, BCom and MA from the University of Otago in her native New Zealand, and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She is currently Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Her research areas are witchcraft accusations in Chhattisgarh and central India, tuberculosis in South Africa and India, and understanding mining dust in southern Africa. She is the former president of Anthropology Southern Africa and now serves as the treasurer for a number of world bodies—the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA), the International Union for Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) and the World Anthropological Union (WAU).