Call for papers (IUAES2019)
Panel title
Portraits of magical practitioners: An approach to the study of magic focusing on persons
Convenors
Fumihiko Tsumura (Meijo University, Japan)
Prasirt Runra (Thammasat University, Thailand)
Chihiro Shirakawa (Osaka University, Japan)
Short panel abstract
Although magic has been discussed by paying attention to words or practices, such dichotomy often misses the practitioner’s own viewpoint or experiences. This panel takes a new approach to magic, focusing on magical specialists and their character to describe the magical world as they understand it.
Long panel abstract
This panel introduces a new approach to magic, focusing on the person who practices magic and describing the magical world as grasped by the specialist and other people.
Since the 1980s, the subject of “magic and modernity” has been discussed mainly in Africa, to investigate modern situations in which magical practices continue to be activated contradictorily. However, the discussion lacks a native point of view about how practitioners consider magic, and what they think and feel about it. As magic can bridge the cognitive gap between rationality and irrationality, or knowledge and practice, it must be analyzed not only through such dichotomies, but also by paying attention to other possibilities such as imagination, creativity, intuition, etc.
To overcome the familiar dichotomies, we concentrate on the person who conducts magical practices. When we compare magic with religion or science, each has its specialist (e.g., witch doctor, priest, scientist). However, the replaceability of the specialist differs highly in each case. While a scientific experiment can be replicated by another scientist, a magical ritual cannot be conducted by another witch doctor. Even though magic shows low replaceability of the practitioner, magical knowledge can be reproduced and maintained. Although the becoming process of specialists has been discussed, as with the famous episode of Quesalid of the Kwakwaka'wakw, their character or personality has rarely been studied. The presentations in this panel will focus on specialists’ words, body, character, intentions, and feelings to describe the magical world as grasped by them.
Keywords
magic, religious specialist, personality, experience, feeling
Paper submission
General information:https://www.iuaes2019.org/paper-guidelines/ (https://www.iuaes2019.org/paper-guidelines/)
Open panels list: https://www.iuaes2019.org/open-panels/ (https://www.iuaes2019.org/open-panels/)
Submission form:https://iuaes2019.syskonf.pl/abstracts (https://iuaes2019.syskonf.pl/abstracts)
Deadline: 15 February 2019
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any question you may have.
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Junko IIDA, PhD
Professor (Anthropology)
Comprehensive Education Center / Faculty of Health and Welfare
Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare
288 Matsushima, Kurashiki, Okayama, 701-0193 Japan
Email: [log in to unmask]
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