Naming the Witch

by James T. Siegel

Naming the Witch explores the recent series of witchcraft accusations and killings in East Java, which spread as the Suharto regime slipped into crisis and then fell. After many years of ethnographic work focusing on the origins and nature of violence in Indonesia, Siegel came to the conclusion that previous anthropological explanations of witchcraft and magic, mostly based on sociological conceptions but also including the work of E.E. Evans-Pritchard and Claude Lévi-Strauss, were simply inadequate to the task of providing a full understanding of the phenomena associated with sorcery, and particularly with the ideas of power connected with it.

Previous explanations have tended to see witchcraft in simple opposition to modernism and modernity (enchantment vs. disenchantment). The author sees witchcraft as an effect of culture, when the latter is incapable of dealing with accident, death, and the fear of the disintegration of social and political relations. He shows how and why modernization and witchcraft can often be companions, as people strive to name what has hitherto been unnameable.

Genres: Witchcraft, Ethnography, Anthropology, History

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Jamie Hardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the densest books I have read in my short time here on Earth. So much information is packed into it, I read it slowly and highlighted about half of it! Its setting is a very specific time and place in Javanese history, right after the fall of Suharto, who had been an overbearing father-president for over thirty years, amidst a rash of mob killings and accusations of witchcraft in the wake of the post-Suharto void of power. It goes deeply into the nature of these accusations and lays out the very complicated logic behind them. It is sensitive and inquisitive, and a good, hard read.

[Madelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

"'Witch,' during a witch hunt, is thus a word with two sides. On the one hand, it indicates the impossibility of naming the provenance of the pure gift; on the other, the very existence of this name obscures this impossibility"

[Edlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siegel mengambil setting wilayah di Malang Selatan yang merupakan kampung halaman saya. Ada perasaan aneh ketika daerah kita dibahas sedemikian rupa oleh peneliti luar negeri dengan bahasan tentang isu dukun santet. Dalam hati saya bertanya? apakah masyarakat yang menjadi informan saya akan merasakan hal yang sama, seandainya mereka berkesempatan untuk membaca tulisan saya tentang mereka.

[6655321 · Rating 1 out of 5]

idk this book took what could've been an interesting discussion and drowned it in a very deep bath of Derrida, Anthropological Theory, endless pointless digressions, and Freudian babble.