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The Magic of Africa: Reflections on a Western Commonplace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Peter Pels
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Abstract:

This paper suggests that a genealogy of European conceptions of African magic still needs to be written. It focuses on a specific Western commonplace, one that pictures Africa as the dark heardand of magic and witchcraft while at the same time saying that this occult core is difficult or dangerous to write about. The analysis of a number of different texts in which this commonplace emerges suggests that this recurrent fear of an African occult core is part of the Western engagement with the occult in Africa through its translation as “witchcraft.” The translation of African magic as “witchcraft” threatens European understandings of self and other just as much as this translation is an attempt to contain the African occult within imperial, colonial, or neocolonial discourses. These different attempts to write about the occult in Africa suggest that this threat of translation cannot be contained; a recent text even suggests that it extends itself to unsetding our sensory perception of the world around us. The magic of Africa requires a still more radical engagement than Africanist anthropology has produced thus far.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Nous suggérons, dans les pages qui suivent, qu'une généalogie des conceptions européennes de la magie africaine reste encore à écrire. Nous nous concentrons sur un lieu commun européen qui représente l'Afrique comme le sombre creuset de la magie et de la sorcellerie tout en disant qu'il est difficile ou dangereux d'écrire sur ce noyau occulte. L'analyse d'un certain nombre de textes différents dans lesquels on rencontre ce lieu commun suggère que cette peur répétée d'un occulte africain est un élément de la perception européenne de l'occulte africain qu'elle voit comme de la “sorcellerie”. Une telle interprétation de l'occulte africain menace la saisie européenne de soi et de l'autre, de même qu'elle est un effort pour contenir l'occulte africain dans les limites du discours impérial, colonial et néo-colonial. Quand on examine ces différents efforts d'écrire sur le sujet de l'occulte en Afrique, il apparaît que cette menace ne saurait s'éviter; en effet un texte récent suggère qu'une telle interprétation va jusqu'à déranger notre perception du monde qui nous entoure. La magie africaine requiert une interprétation encore plus radicale que n'a pu jusqu'ici offrir l'anthropologie africaniste.

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , December 1998 , pp. 193 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1998

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