Introductory chapter to Part II – Magic being re-understood

International audienceThis chapter has two goals: first, it provides an overview of ‘magic’ as a research theme, primarily in anthropology. Second, it introduces radical perspectivism as the most promising contemporary approach to the study of in magic. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the classical anthropological approaches to magic: Taylor, Frazer, Mauss, Malinowski, Evans-Pritchard pass the review. Is magic merely the primitive’s flawed effort at cognition or does magic have more important social and cultural dimensions? Then, more contemporary work passes the review, especially de Martino’s study of magical beliefs among poor villagers in Southern Italy and Favret-Saada’s study of witchcraft in rural France. Here, linked theoretically to Taussig, the Comeroffs and Descola, the social significance of magic is developed. Finally, with Viveiros de Castro, radical perspectivism is introduced to make the claim that the much needed development of ‘virtualities’ and concepts of human/nature harmony, can be furthered through research attention to magic