Reconsidering Witchcraft: Postcolonial Africa and Analytic (Un)Certainties

African notions of witchcraft are neither archaic nor static but are highly flexible and deeply attuned to the conundrums of our contemporary world. Many anthropologists have recently argued that notions of the African witch provide commentaries on the meaning and merit of modernity as experienced in different historical and cultural settings. By exploring one particular type of witchcraft —that involving rain—amongst the lhanzu of Tanzania, this article suggests instead that some forms of witchcraft may be more pertinent to understanding local notions of "tradition" than "modernity." It is argued that the process of identifying rain witches provides lhanzu men and women with a way to circumscribe, contemplate, and, ultimately, reassert the veracity and significance of a conceptual category they call "tradition." The article concludes by critiquing the homogenizing effects of terms like the African witch and African witchcraft, compelling us to think in terms of pluralities rather than singulars. [Keywords: witchcraft, modernity, tradition, rainmaking, anthropological theory]     

Mass Inhumation and the Execution of Witches in the American Southwest

Recent analyses of prehistoric multiple inhumations in Anasazi sites in the American Southwest have argued that cannibalism best explains evidence of defleshing, cutting, and bone breakage. The validity of this explanation is questioned in a review of ethnohistoric and ethnographic literature on Pueblo witchcraft and witch execution. A model based on Puebloan procedures for witch destruction is offered which accounts for osteological patterning in the archaeological record as well as contextual and artifactual evidence not considered previously.     

A Shared Intentional Space of Witch-Hunt and Sacrifice

In this article, the issue is whether witch-hunts can be seen to share certain aspects with the realm of sacrifice. With resource to recent developments in the Pacific Island nation of Vanuatu, it is argued that witchcraft is ‘the other side of sacrifice’ in more than one sense: firstly, as the witch is sacrificing its victim and breaking through to the social world from a world beyond and, secondly, as the witch-hunt is a movement with the purpose of sacrificing the accused witch for the healing of the community. The argument hinges on the alignment of the space intended by sacrifice and the space revealed by the appearance of the witch – as both articulating an engagement with ‘the very source of life’ (Hubert & Mauss 1964: 98).     

Witchcraft and the limits of mass mediation in Malawi

This article explores what the study of witchcraft in an African setting can contribute to current efforts to theorize mass mediation and the imagination it fosters. Recent ethnographies of witchcraft discourses in Africa have continued to associate them with the formation of small-scale groups, but evidence from Malawi shows how they enable subjects to imagine sociality on an indeterminate scale. The article deploys the concept of mediation to theorize how in this imagination witches mediate sociality as the unrecognized third parties who give rise to recognized social relationships of varying scale. The ethnography of witchcraft discourses in radio broadcasting and an impoverished peri-urban area demonstrates not only their relevance to apparently disparate contexts but also their potential to exceed the impact of the mass media. The case of a violent conflict involving Pentecostal Christians, South Asian entrepreneurs, Muslims, and members of a secret society provides an example of how arguments about witchcraft had a greater impact on the popular imagination than a mass-mediated report of the same conflict. The article concludes by arguing that witchcraft discourses should be accorded weight equal to the mass media in theorizing the imagination.     

Intermarriage and reciprocal household exchange practices in a mixed community in Roti,Indonesia

For several generations, intermarriage has been common between indigenous Rotinese Christians and migrant Muslims and their descendants in the Indonesian village of Oelua on Roti Island. Muslims have engaged with the customary institutions upheld by indigenous Rotinese Christians—namely, those associated with marriage proposals and bridewealth. They have also engaged in reciprocal inter‐household exchanges to raise the cash to pay for weddings and bridewealth, as well as for other life cycle events such as funeral feasts and gatherings in the post‐funeral mourning period. This article argues that intermarriage and inter‐household monetary exchanges are important, among other factors, in promoting low conflict relations between the two groups, primarily because of the regular opportunities generated to interact in both public and private spheres. Marriage preferences in Oelua are changing, however, with young Muslim men preferring to marry women who subscribe to the same religion and similar customs. Muslim attitudes are also changing with respect to their involvement in inter‐household reciprocal exchanges, with many wanting to engage in different ways, or not at all. The article discusses what these changing attitudes and practices may mean for maintaining congenial inter‐group relations between Christians and Muslims in the future.     

Witchcraft Beliefs and Witch Hunts

This paper proposes an interdisciplinary explanation of the cross-cultural similarities and evolutionary patterns of witchcraft beliefs. It argues that human social dilemmas have led to the evolution of a fear system that is sensitive to signs of deceit and envy. This was adapted in the evolutionary environment of small foraging bands but became overstimulated by the consequences of the Agricultural Revolution, leading to witch paranoia. State formation, civilization, and economic development abated the fear of witches and replaced it in part with more collectivist forms of social paranoia. However, demographic-economic crises could rekindle fear of witches—resulting, for example, in the witch craze of early modern Europe. The Industrial Revolution broke the Malthusian shackles, but modern economic growth requires agricultural development as a starting point. In sub-Saharan Africa, witch paranoia has resurged because the conditions for agricultural development are lacking, leading to fighting for opportunities and an erosion of intergenerational reciprocity.     

Sorcery in the Era of 'Henry IV': Kinship, Mobility and Mortality in Buhera District, Zimbabwe

Recent studies of witchcraft and sorcery in Africa have described this domain as an all–powerful and inescapable discourse. This article, on a migrant labour society in Zimbabwe, discloses a situation in which this discourse and its interpretation are contested. It shows how existential insecurity, which gives rise to witchcraft accusations, relates to the high incidence of HIV/AIDS–related illnesses and death – euphemistically called Henry IV (HIV). Witchcraft accusations arise within kin–based networks that span rural and urban geographical areas, as it is these networks that people depend upon for their livelihoods. Thus, this article stresses the important link between witchcraft and kinship in a society that is not geographically bound, revealing how witchcraft discourse is assigned a place relative to other social phenomena.     

Occult return,divine grace,and saabui: practising transnational kinship in postsocialist Guinea

In the Republic of Guinea, where transnational migration has become a critical path to prestige among young urbanites, migrant success abroad is intimately connected to the cultivation of kin ties at home. For performing artists, who were the darlings of Guinea's Socialist Revolution (1958‐84), the experience of migration is uniquely linked to the fall of the socialist state and to the precarity of urban life in contemporary Africa. This article describes how Guinean artists manage distance and uncertainty through three practices: occult aggression, grace‐seeking, and patronage (saabui), which together illustrate the contours and limitations of kinship's efficacy in transnational space. By exploring transnational kinship as an intersubjective and productive practice that can extend beyond obligation or solidarity and into the realm of magic, this article proposes new ways of conceptualizing what it means for migrants to maintain significant connections across national borders.     

Attaining the mystical body: Indian Sufi ascetic practices

While anthropologists have carefully documented various Sufi orders, the bulk of these studies focus on socio‐historic and organisational aspects of Sufism. This has been especially the case of Sufis in India. There is an apparent lack of examining experiential aspects Sufi mystical practices. In India, many Sufi orders are intrinsically linked with Muslim shrines. Muslim shrines are viewed by Sufi as being invested with barkat (divine blessedness, sacred power), a power generally assumed to be a gift conferred upon the saint by Allah. Consequently, Sufis often engage in their mystical practices in the proximity of Muslim shrines. The shrine of the Sufi saint Nizamuddin Auliya, located in Delhi, is a renowned thaumatological shrine which is a centre for Sufi activities. Sufis spend many years engaged in a rigorous regimen of ascetic and mystical practices. These form a central part of their daily lives at the Nizamuddin shrine. In this article, I explore the notion of mystical mastery among Indian Sufis and ways in which their ascetic practices seek to attain a mystical body. I contend that mystical mastery is a form of re‐authoring the self, in that Sufis’ mystical complexes permit them to transform and modify themselves through various operations on their bodies.     

现代生物声学的学科发展趋势及中国机遇

随着数字录音技术、电子学和微电子学、人工智能、信息科学等跨学科领域的技术革新,现代生物声学逐渐与生物学、生态学等学科及关联学科之间形成了广泛的交叉前沿领域。现阶段,现代生物声学主要以生物学、生态学等基础学科的理论方法为指导,着重于揭示环境中各类声音在生物之间以及生物与人类、环境之间的相互作用及相关科学规律,为人类认识、保护和利用生物声学资源提供理论基础和解决方案。本文重点阐述了现代生物声学的学科内涵和学科特征,介绍了动物生物声学、生态声学、水下生物声学、环境生物声学、保护生物声学、计算生物声学以及现代生物声学研究的技术框架等前沿热点和发展趋势,评估了中国生物声学研究的学科现状与发展机遇,并对未来学科建设进行了展望。     

鹅膏菌毒素及其毒理研究进展

鹅膏菌是一类真菌的 称,误食野生蘑菇的中毒事件中,９５％以上由鹅膏菌引起,国外自六十年代起,对其毒理进行了深入的研究,而国仙则只是在九十年代才刚开始这方面的工作。为促进国内鹅膏菌毒素毒理的研究,作者概括了国内外各方面的资料,写就本文。本文概述了鹅膏 多肽毒素的种类、鹅膏菌毒素中毒反应及病理学症状、机体对鹅膏菌毒素的吸收、鹅膏菌毒素的生和毒理以及鹅膏菌毒素在生命科学研究中的应用,为国内这方面的研究提     

低龄婴幼儿龋微生物群落的研究进展

低龄婴幼儿龋(early childhood caries,ECC)是影响全世界儿童最常见的疾病之一,然而龋病并不是由单一致龋细菌引起,而是由微生物、宿主、饮食和时间,即"龋病病因四因素"之间复杂的相互作用所引起,其中微生物因素起着主要作用。口腔微生物之间存在着一种稳定关系,与宿主保持着和谐的生态平衡,一旦受到某种特殊环境改变的影响,这种平衡则可能被打破。到目前为止,国内外关于ECC的微生物群落研究方法很多,结果不尽相同,因此了解ECC的组成及动态变化对于儿童龋病的预防和防治极其重要。本文就ECC微生物群落的研究进展作一详细综述。     

Financialization without liquidity: in‐kind payments,forced credit,and authoritarianism at the periphery of Europe

After 2008, the spectacular collapse of financial markets in the United States, Spain, Iceland, Portugal, and Greece has induced researchers to conceptualize financialization as a rapid and unsustainable increase in liquidity. In Macedonia, a small country at the periphery of the European Union, however, the spread of financial instruments and debt coincided with an increased use of in‐kind payments instead of money. Focusing on a type of non‐monetary exchanges that Macedonians call kompenzacija, the article shows how in‐kind payments are integrated to financial flows, and are crucial to the emergence of an authoritarian regime. In the Macedonian context, kompenzacija is part of an oppressive set of relations whereby companies are forced to provide monetary credit to the regime by accepting payment in goods that lose value over time. The article describes the conditions that shape financialization at the periphery of Europe, and identifies in value conversions a crucial variable for understanding the interconnection between politics and finance.     

医疗联合体国内外研究现状及发展动态

医疗资源配置不均衡,医疗服务“断裂”以及“碎片化”的问题越来越受到国内外专家学者以及卫生政策制定者的关注。构建医疗联合体是医疗资源整合的方式之一。本文对医疗联合体的国内外研究现状及发展动态进行梳理和总结,旨在为我国医疗联合体的构建及发展提供一定的经验和启示。     

医疗联合体国内外研究现状及发展动态

医疗资源配置不均衡,医疗服务“断裂”以及“碎片化”的问题越来越受到国内外专家学者以及卫生政策制定者的关注。构建医疗联合体是医疗资源整合的方式之一。文章对医疗联合体的国内外研究现状及发展动态进行梳理和总结,旨在为我国医疗联合体的构建及发展提供一定的经验和启示。     

Migration, Education, and the Status of Women in Southern Nigeria

This article examines changes in the status of women migrants, educated and noneducated, to various urban centers in one Nigerian ethnic group. The migrants are examined in contrast to women who remained residents in the rural home community. The major focus is on male-female relations in the household. Findings indicate an erosion of the private status or domestic power of educated urban women, living in monogamous, nuclear family households.     

Selective migration from Samoa: a longitudinal study of pre-migration differences in social and psychological characteristics

In 1981 extensive questionnaire and interview data were collected on some 100 young Samoan adults. Five years later in 1986 we determined their whereabouts and divided the data in accordance with migration status. The answers of the 35 who had migrated in the intervening period were contrasted to those 65 who remained in Samoa. The migrants differed in several distinct areas. Migrants reported a higher degree of peer-reliance as a personal adaptive strategy. Migrants also reported larger numbers of individuals in social support networks, a higher quality of support and more community involvement. They also report less expressive display of anger. Those who did not migrate reported a slightly better view of life in Samoa and abroad, as well as better relations with their friends and neighbors. These findings support a hypothesis that migrants are pre-selected to fit into migrant communities and do not appear to be misfits who are unhappy with life in Samoa.     

护理人员工作负荷测量方法研究进展

护理工作负荷的测量是确定护理人力资源配置的重要依据,本文通过总结国内外护理人员工作负荷的测量方法,分析每种方法具体测量内容及其优缺点, 为科学合理的测量护理工作负荷提供参考。     

植物抗寒机理研究进展

本文综合概述了国内外有关植物抗寒机理研究的动态,主要讨论了植物抗寒性与细胞膜系、酶系多态性及抗寒基因表达与调控之间的相关性。此外,亦提出了有关植物抗寒机制研究领域值得深入研讨的问题。