[Linganth] CFP AAA 2017: Translating Witchcraft

[Cheryl Schmitz]

Please circulate to all interested parties. Thank you!


Call for papers: AAA meetings in Washington, D.C., Nov. 29 - Dec. 3, 2017
Co-organizers: Iracema Dulley (CEBRAP) and Cheryl Schmitz (UC Berkeley)
Discussant: Martin Holbraad (University College London)

Translating Witchcraft
 
Similarities have long been recognized between the practice of anthropology and that of translation, and recent years have seen renewed interest in this topic. Anthropology and translation are brought into comparative tension not only because ethnographic writing involves the translation of vernacular concepts into the language in which the ethnography is written, but also because anthropology is considered by many to be an effort of conceptual translation between different sociocultural contexts. Thus, anthropological translation has been understood as a process in which equivalences are established (Malinowski’s aim to “translate the native point of view to the European”), as a working misunderstanding or a dialogue of the deaf (respectively, as Sahlins and MacGaffey would have it), and even as a minor issue from a structural perspective (Lévi-Strauss’s stance on the translation of myths). Witchcraft, in particular, has presented challenges for translation in anthropology. Evans-Pritchard’s work on the Azande, for example, highlighted the problem of translating concepts that must be understood within certain cultural systems. Although cultural holism can no longer be assumed, similar challenges persist today. This panel will explore issues of translation with a focus on the ethnographic rendering of encounters with witchcraft and related concepts. It is interested in questions such as: How does communication about evil, magic, or the fetish, take place in intercultural situations? What is the work of equivalence and/or displacement that occurs in processes of translation? And when are ideas considered to be translatable or incommensurable in ethnographic experience and writing?

Please send your title and abstract (250 words max.) to Iracema Dulley (idulley at gmail.com <mailto:idulley at gmail.com>) and Cheryl Schmitz (cherylmeiting at gmail.com <mailto:cherylmeiting at gmail.com>) by Tuesday, April 4th.
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