As a folklorist, I found Luhrman's book a useful
advance on anything that had previously been
published, and was impressed by her sociological and
psychological insights. Some were amusingly familiar
to non-witches, e.g. some explanations her informants
gave for spells that hadn't worked were remarkably
like those religious people use for unanswered
prayers. However, I know other folklorists who argued
that her scholarly integrity was compromised by
getting too 'close' to her informants. For this
reason, I was surprised to see that her book was not
even shortlisted for a certain folklore award that
year, whereas if I'd been on the judging panel I would
have thought it had been a contribution of merit.
Jacqueline
--- heliade <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi, this is a question that might be best answered
> by the anthropologists here... You know Tanya
> Luhrman's "Persuasions of the Witch's Craft"? Well,
> I know that many, or is it most, of the Witches and
> Magicians that she studied felt that she hadn't
> represented them corectly, or that she was sarcastic
> or otherwise betrayed them.
>
> Is this the only complaint about her methods / book?
> How is it seen academically? Is it considered to
> have been done 'correctly'? In other words, was her
> only 'crime' to - in journalistic terms - burn her
> sources? Or was there something else wrong with or
> objectionable about her work?
>
> (I used to own the book, lent it out, never got it
> back, and I've just re-ordered it from amazon).
>
> ~Caroline.
>
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