I'm afraid I have to disagree with Al, who wrote:
Apparently a number of scholars felt she got too personally involved
>and lost her objectivity.
>
> You know she won't have anything to do with this field of study now, right?
Luhrmann's study was fairly well-received by academic anthropologists. I don't recall reviews attacking her objectivity. She has not left this field of study at all, if what you mean by that is the anthropological study of religion; in fact, she went on to produce a study of American psychiatry as a kind of religion, and a study of Hindu religiosity and ritual in India. She is one of the most highly regarded anthropologists of religion in the US; she holds a tenured professorship at the University of Chicago, a bastion of great anthropological scholarship; she chaired the 2004 American Anthropological Association meetings in Atlanta; and she was head of the Anthropology of Religion subsection of the AAA. So her study of Witchcraft has hardly damaged her career or reputation.
Please note that I am not justifying her research ethics. In these post-"Darkness in Eldorado" days, I believe they would be held to higher scrutiny by her peers; but PotWC was published in 1989.
BB,
Sabina
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2006 20:35:46 -0800
>From: Al Billings <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Persuasions of the Witch's Craft
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>heliade 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).
>>
>
> Apparently a number of scholars felt she got too personally involved
>and lost her objectivity.
>
> You know she won't have anything to do with this field of study now, right?
>
>Al
Sabina Magliocco
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
California State University
18111 Nordhoff St.
Northridge, CA 91330-8244
|