- 337 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
"Do you believe in magic?" This familiar question suggests magic is easily recognized but unreal. In Magic's Translations, Margaret J. Wiener argues that such views are shaped by historical power struggles, especially in Europe's relations with the wider world. Focusing on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Dutch interactions with Indonesians, Wiener reveals how colonial agents framed unfamiliar practices, practitioners, and objects as "magic," rendering distinct phenomena fundamentally alike and advancing colonizing projects that deemed magic antithetical to reason and reality. While colonial authorities, including ethnologists, mobilized the concept of magic to differentiate Europeans from Indonesians, nature from culture, reason from superstition, and fact from fetish, their efforts produced unexpected outcomes: Some Indonesian artifacts and acts not only retained their power but invaded European experiences. As anthropologists were among the key translators of magic throughout the world, Wiener intersperses accounts of magic's translations in the Indies with reflections on anthropology's ongoing engagement with the concept. She demonstrates that magic became an object of expert knowledge, political control, and popular fascination, rather than a self-evident category or relic of naïve belief.
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Information
Publisher
Duke University Press BooksYear
2025Print ISBN
9781478031734
9781478028505
eBook ISBN
9781478060710
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Interlude 1. Witch Doctors
- 1. Tricky Subjects
- Interlude 2. The Fetish
- 2. Troubling Objects
- Interlude 3. Coordinating Devices
- 3. Things Collective
- Interlude 4. Getting Caught
- 4. Dangerous Liaisons
- Interlude 5. The Magic of Magic
- 5. Hidden Forces
- Interlude 6. The Magic of Science Studies
- Epilogue
- Afterword by Isabelle Stengers
- Notes
- References
- Index
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Yes, you can access Magic’s Translations by Margaret J. Wiener in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Religion. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.