Beviev [unlilIed]

AulIov|s) Felev OescIieve

Souvce JouvnaI oJ BeIigion in AJvica, VoI. 27, Fasc. 2 |Ma, 1997), pp. 183-186
FuIIisIed I BRILL
SlaIIe UBL http://www.jstor.org/stable/1581687 .
Accessed 26/02/2011 0756
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bap. .
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
BRILL is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Religion in Africa.
http://www.jstor.org
Reviews Reviews
are relevant to
contemporary
issues in social
theory.
In
elucidating
the
processes by
which structures of
ethnicity,
status,
and craft
specializa-
tion were constructed in
populations
in contact with the
empires
of
Mali and
Ghana,
the volume makes a
significant
contribution to the
social
history
and
ongoing processes
of cultural
pluralism
in West Africa.
Misissippi
State University
HELEN A. REGIS
COMAROFF, Jean
and
John (eds.), Modemniy
and Its Malcontents: Ritual and
Power in Postcolonial
Africa, Chicago, University
of
Chicago
Press, 1993,
xxxvii,
233
pp.,
0226 114406
This is an
exciting
but also
frightening
collection of articles. The
central issue is how
people
in
postcolonial
Africa
try
to come to
grips
with
'moderity'-its promises
and
disappointments.
The contributors
come from the Africanist circle around
Jean
and
John
Comaroff at the
University
of
Chicago,
who have collaborated for some time. The advan-
tages
of such
long-term
collaboration are clear: this collection forms a
unity although
the contributions concern
very
different
parts
of Africa.
Together
the
essays give
a
powerful image
of the
creativity
and
dynamism
with which African societies use their cultural
heritage
in order to deal
with modem
changes.
The collection is all the more
exciting
since most
contributions are based on recent
fieldwork,
using
vivid scenes from
the field. This makes them also
quite frightening. Together they
con-
vey
a forceful
image
of the
depth
of the
disappointment
about moder-
nity
in the continent-of the
desperate struggles
to
participate
at least
to some
degree
in its dreams and the fierce internal tensions that fol-
low from this.
The introduction
by
the Comaroffs is
overwhelming
in the
speed
and riches of its ideas. The authors focus on 'ritual'
trying
to rescue
this notion from its static
implications
in older
anthropological
work.
Instead it should be studied as 'intentional communication' or
'signify-
ing practice.'
This
may
mean
stretching
this term
very far-nearly
everything
can be
brought
under this
heading-but
it does make 'rit-
ual,'
in this
sense,
highly
relevant to understand Africans'
struggles
with
modernity.
The central
concept
of the book
is, however,
'witchcraft'
rather than ritual.
Indeed,
one of the
strong points
of the book is to
show that 'witchcraft' is not an
antiquarian anthropological hobby,
but
a
dynamic reality
in
postcolonial
Africa and
part
and
parcel
of
peo-
ple's
ideas about
modernity.
As the Comaroffs assert it at the end of
are relevant to
contemporary
issues in social
theory.
In
elucidating
the
processes by
which structures of
ethnicity,
status,
and craft
specializa-
tion were constructed in
populations
in contact with the
empires
of
Mali and
Ghana,
the volume makes a
significant
contribution to the
social
history
and
ongoing processes
of cultural
pluralism
in West Africa.
Misissippi
State University
HELEN A. REGIS
COMAROFF, Jean
and
John (eds.), Modemniy
and Its Malcontents: Ritual and
Power in Postcolonial
Africa, Chicago, University
of
Chicago
Press, 1993,
xxxvii,
233
pp.,
0226 114406
This is an
exciting
but also
frightening
collection of articles. The
central issue is how
people
in
postcolonial
Africa
try
to come to
grips
with
'moderity'-its promises
and
disappointments.
The contributors
come from the Africanist circle around
Jean
and
John
Comaroff at the
University
of
Chicago,
who have collaborated for some time. The advan-
tages
of such
long-term
collaboration are clear: this collection forms a
unity although
the contributions concern
very
different
parts
of Africa.
Together
the
essays give
a
powerful image
of the
creativity
and
dynamism
with which African societies use their cultural
heritage
in order to deal
with modem
changes.
The collection is all the more
exciting
since most
contributions are based on recent
fieldwork,
using
vivid scenes from
the field. This makes them also
quite frightening. Together they
con-
vey
a forceful
image
of the
depth
of the
disappointment
about moder-
nity
in the continent-of the
desperate struggles
to
participate
at least
to some
degree
in its dreams and the fierce internal tensions that fol-
low from this.
The introduction
by
the Comaroffs is
overwhelming
in the
speed
and riches of its ideas. The authors focus on 'ritual'
trying
to rescue
this notion from its static
implications
in older
anthropological
work.
Instead it should be studied as 'intentional communication' or
'signify-
ing practice.'
This
may
mean
stretching
this term
very far-nearly
everything
can be
brought
under this
heading-but
it does make 'rit-
ual,'
in this
sense,
highly
relevant to understand Africans'
struggles
with
modernity.
The central
concept
of the book
is, however,
'witchcraft'
rather than ritual.
Indeed,
one of the
strong points
of the book is to
show that 'witchcraft' is not an
antiquarian anthropological hobby,
but
a
dynamic reality
in
postcolonial
Africa and
part
and
parcel
of
peo-
ple's
ideas about
modernity.
As the Comaroffs assert it at the end of
Journal of Religion
in
Africa, XXVII,
2
Journal of Religion
in
Africa, XXVII,
2
183 183
C
Koninklijke Brill, Leiden,
1997 C
Koninklijke Brill, Leiden,
1997
Reviews
their Introduction: '... nor... are witches advocates of "tradition"...
They embody
all the contradictions of the
expression
of
modernity
itself,
of its
inescapable enticements...,
its
devastating
social costs'
(p. xxix).
Thus,
this book is one of the first of a recent series of studies on the
dynamics
of 'witchcraft' in relation to
modernity-a topic
that anthro-
pologists
have too
long
abandoned to
theologians, philosophers
and
journalists.
The collection raises therefore the basic
question
of
why
'witchcraft'
continues to be such a crucial issue in Africans'
experience
of moder-
nity?
The most ambitious answer to this
question
comes from
Ralph
Austen who
places
it in a
truly global
historical
perspective
in his con-
tribution on 'The Moral
Economy
of Witchcraft.' He tries to show that
the different
trajectories
of witchcraft beliefs in
Europe
and Africa can
only
be understood
against
the
background
of the
evolving
historical
relation between the two continents. He relates the witchcraft craze in
16th and 17th
century Europe
to the
anti-consumption
ethos of
early
capitalism
and its ascetic overtones
('the European
version of zero-
sum
economics')
and the later abandonment of witchcraft beliefs to
the
increasing
abundance of
consumption goods.
But this abundance
depended
on low-cost
imports
from the Third World-for Africa
through
the slave trade.
And,
as Austen shows with a wealth of
images,
it is
precisely
the slave trade
which,
in this
continent,
is still 'the
major
his-
torical reference to the
equation
of
capital accumulation,
zero-sum eco-
nomics... and witchcraft'
(p. 103).
The other contributions
may
be less ambitious in the
scope
of their
explanations
but
they
do offer vivid
analyses
of this relation between
accumulation and 'witchcraft.' It is
quite striking-in
view of the
Comaroffs' earlier strictures about the
case-study
method and
focusing
on
specific
events-that the contributions
starting
from this
approach
succeed best in
highlighting
the
complexities
of this relation. This
applies
especially
to Bastian and Auslander's forceful studies. Mark Auslander
tries to
map
the 'moral
geography'
of witchcraft
by analyzing
the rise
and fall of a witch-finder in Eastern Zambia. Of
particular
interest are
his
emphasis
on the road as a central
point
of reference in this 'moral
geography,' replacing
more or less the
weakening
State,
and the idea
that the witch-finder
epitomizes
the informal sector and its sudden wind-
falls,
thus
providing
a new role model for
young
men. There is a dan-
ger
here that
making
'witchcraft' talk about
something
else leads one
to
neglect
the
cogency
of the discourse itself. But Auslander does show
how witch-finders succeed in
intertwining
elements from
very
different
provenance. Misty
Bastian starts from an article in a
Nigerian
news-
184
Reviws
paper
on how the relation between
Igbo villagers
and urban elite is
beset
by
witchcraft. In a
very
rich
analysis
which she
spins
out from
this brief
article,
she shows how the
frightening
riches of discourse on
witchcraft makes it
apply
to a broad
array
of situations
allowing
an
endless
range
of
interpretation.
Thus,
it becomes understandable that
both elite and
villagers
contrive to see the other
party
as 'witches.'
Similar
perspectives-in
close relations to the vicissitudes of
daily
life-
are
developed by
Adeline
Masquelier
(on
the relation between market
and
dangerous spirits among
the
Mawri,
Niger); by
Pamela Schmoll
(on
soul-eating
and 'the search for
money' among
the
Hausa,
also in
Niger);
and
by
Andrew
Apter
in his
re-interpretation
of the
Atinga
witch-finding
movement
among
the Yoruba as
expressing
a 'terror of
development.'
Deborah
Kaspin's
contribution on the transformation of the
Nyau
dance
among
the Chewa
(Malawi)
in relation to
present-day power
rela-
tions,
and Lorand
Matory's
on the evolvement of the
trope
of 'mount-
ing'
in
Oyo-Yoruba religion
and
gender
are
equally
rich in ideas. But
the link with action and
daily practice
is
missing
here and this raises
questions
as to how these authors' intricate
interpretations
relate to the
intentions and views of the
people
involved.
Even this brief
summary may
indicate the riches and
audacity
of
this collection: there is
ample
food for
thought
here. Somewhat sur-
prising
to me was that the contributors
emphasize
that the
'witches,'
targeted
on the interface of 'witchcraft' and
modernity,
are
mostly
women. This
corresponds
to an
emphasis
on the
special
link between
'witchcraft' and
reproduction.
But for
many parts
of
Africa,
it is
reported
in
contrast,
that
precisely
when 'witchcraft' rumours concern new forms
of
accumulation,
women are somewhat
relegated
to the
background.
There are no doubt
important regional
variations in this
respect
but
different
perspectives may
also
play
a role. The
ethnographic
data in
several contributions of this book
richly
document the
ambivalence,
also
emphasized
in the Comaroffs'
Introduction,
of 'witchcraft' in relation
to
modernity.
'Witchcraft'
may
serve to attack and level the new
inequal-
ities,
but it can also be
used,
in various
ways,
to
protect
and affirm
the
position
of the new rich. And it is
especially
in this last sense that
the rumours refer to the use of occult
power by
men. Of
course,
these
rumours lead less often to formal accusations-it is more
dangerous
to
accuse the rich and
powerful-but
one of the merits of this collection
is
precisely
that it
convincingly
shows that in the
changing
circum-
stances of
postcolonial
Africa,
rumours are at least as
important
as for-
mal accusations for 'witchcraft' studies.
185
Reviews Reviews
This ambivalence
might
be a basic trait of 'witchcraft' discourses.
'Witchcraft' can be used to attack and kill
people.
But the main
pro-
tection
against
such attacks has to be
sought
within the domain of
witchcraft itself.
Indeed,
in
many parts
of
Africa,
the 'witch-doctor' can
only
heal because
(s)he
has killed before. African societies
may
differ
in the
ways
in which
they
succeed in
compartmentalizing
this dis-
course-in
conceptually separating
more
positive
and more
negative
uses of these occult forces. But the basic
circularity
of the discourse is
always
there.
In the
Introduction,
the Comaroffs state that a crucial
challenge
to
African studies is 'how to read
European imperialism
and its aftermath
without
reducing
it to crude
equations
of
power,
domination and alien-
ation'
(xiii).
Because of its
powerful
combination of vivid
ethnography
and theoretical
audacity,
this collection indicates
exciting
avenues to
meet this
challenge-to
do more
justice
to
people's creativity
in
facing
modernity's
enchantment.
Universit
of
Leiden PETER GESCHIERE
LABEK, Michael, Knowledge
and Practice in
Mayotte:
Local Discourses
of
Islam,
Sorcery
and
Spirit Possession,
Toronto:
University
of Toronto
Press, 1992,
ISBN 0 8020 7783 8
How do those societies on the Islamic
periphery
reconcile Islamic
teaching
with other forms of
knowledge?
And how are we to
pursue
cultural
analysis
which takes
seriously
the idea that culture is not a
bounded,
coherent
unit,
but rather contextual and
multivocal,
while
seriously attending
to differences of
power
and the cultural constitution
of
authority?
These
questions
are central to
Knowledge
and Practice in
Mayotte,
a
richly detailed,
diachronic
study
of
contending
traditions of
knowledge
and
practice, specifically
those concerned with
healing
and
misfortune,
in two related
villages
on the island of
Mayotte.
One of
the Comoros islands
(and
the
only one,
since
1975,
to retain ties with
France), Mayotte
is located between the Northwestern
tip
of Mada-
gascar
and
Mozambique.
Local culture is a fusion of
Swahili,
Middle
Eastern and
Malagasy
elements;
this
multiplicity
of different cultural
traditions,
and the
way they commingle
and
compete
in
daily experi-
ence,
form the focus of Lambek's
inquiry.
Lambek's basic
premise
is that cultures are
'conjunctions
of incom-
mensurable discourses'
(p. 12). Borrowing Rorty's
definition of incom-
This ambivalence
might
be a basic trait of 'witchcraft' discourses.
'Witchcraft' can be used to attack and kill
people.
But the main
pro-
tection
against
such attacks has to be
sought
within the domain of
witchcraft itself.
Indeed,
in
many parts
of
Africa,
the 'witch-doctor' can
only
heal because
(s)he
has killed before. African societies
may
differ
in the
ways
in which
they
succeed in
compartmentalizing
this dis-
course-in
conceptually separating
more
positive
and more
negative
uses of these occult forces. But the basic
circularity
of the discourse is
always
there.
In the
Introduction,
the Comaroffs state that a crucial
challenge
to
African studies is 'how to read
European imperialism
and its aftermath
without
reducing
it to crude
equations
of
power,
domination and alien-
ation'
(xiii).
Because of its
powerful
combination of vivid
ethnography
and theoretical
audacity,
this collection indicates
exciting
avenues to
meet this
challenge-to
do more
justice
to
people's creativity
in
facing
modernity's
enchantment.
Universit
of
Leiden PETER GESCHIERE
LABEK, Michael, Knowledge
and Practice in
Mayotte:
Local Discourses
of
Islam,
Sorcery
and
Spirit Possession,
Toronto:
University
of Toronto
Press, 1992,
ISBN 0 8020 7783 8
How do those societies on the Islamic
periphery
reconcile Islamic
teaching
with other forms of
knowledge?
And how are we to
pursue
cultural
analysis
which takes
seriously
the idea that culture is not a
bounded,
coherent
unit,
but rather contextual and
multivocal,
while
seriously attending
to differences of
power
and the cultural constitution
of
authority?
These
questions
are central to
Knowledge
and Practice in
Mayotte,
a
richly detailed,
diachronic
study
of
contending
traditions of
knowledge
and
practice, specifically
those concerned with
healing
and
misfortune,
in two related
villages
on the island of
Mayotte.
One of
the Comoros islands
(and
the
only one,
since
1975,
to retain ties with
France), Mayotte
is located between the Northwestern
tip
of Mada-
gascar
and
Mozambique.
Local culture is a fusion of
Swahili,
Middle
Eastern and
Malagasy
elements;
this
multiplicity
of different cultural
traditions,
and the
way they commingle
and
compete
in
daily experi-
ence,
form the focus of Lambek's
inquiry.
Lambek's basic
premise
is that cultures are
'conjunctions
of incom-
mensurable discourses'
(p. 12). Borrowing Rorty's
definition of incom-
Journal of Relgion
in
Afiica, XXVII,
2 Journal of Relgion
in
Afiica, XXVII,
2
186 186
C
Koninklijke Brill, Leiden,
1997 C
Koninklijke Brill, Leiden,
1997