Galina Lindquist
CONJURING HOPE Healing and Magic in Contemporary Russia. Berghahn books,
2005.
256 pages, bibliog., index
ISBN 1-84545-057-4 Hb $60.00/£36.50
Notions of magic and healing have been changing over past years and are now
understood as reflecting local ideas of power and agency, as well as
structures of self, subjectivity and affect. This study focuses on
contemporary urban Russia and, through exploring social conditions, conveys
the experience of living that makes magic logical. By following people’s own
interpretations of the work of magic, the author succeeds in unraveling the
logic of local practice and local understanding of affliction, commonly used
to diagnose the experiences of illness and misfortune.
Galina Lindquist was born in Russia, and trained as anthropologist in
Sweden. She received her degree at the Department of Social Anthropology,
University of Stockholm, for the study of urban shamans in Scandinavia.
Since then she has done work in medical anthropology and anthropology of
religion, with a special focus on folk religious and healing practices. Her
other areas of interest are play, ritual, and anthropology of consciousness.
***
This book discusses magic and healing in contemporary urban Russia. It
follows recent anthropological understandings of magic as reflecting local
ideas of power and agency, as well as the structures of self, subjectivity
and affect. It tries to convey the experience of living that makes magic
logical, and inquires into the social conditions of this experience.
People's own interpretations of the work of magic are addressed, in order to
unravel the logic of local practice. To this end, the book employs the basic
tools of Peircian semiotics, arguing that the mechanisms of magic in Russia
are not only symbolic, but primarily iconic and indexical. Elements of magic
are analyzed as "icons of power"-- as signs that are structurally homologous
(iconical) with other cultural grids of power and force. As icons, these
elements act indexically, to achieve transformations of subjectivity and
self.
These ideas are used to discuss the local terminology of affliction,
commonly used to diagnose the experiences of illness and misfortune. How we
can gain access to people's subjective experience, by treating their
language and actions as icons and indexes of their emotions and affective
moods, is central to the discussion. Stories of treatment are analyzed to
trace the transformations of subjectivity and the self that occur in the
interaction between the client and the healer. Further, focusing on
practitioners, it is argued that the perceived power to heal stems from the
fact that the practitioners are seen, and see themselves, as "icons of
power".
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