Slippage: An Anthropology of Shamanism
Annual Review of Anthropology October 21, 2021 Bruce Grant 14 citations
The study of shamanism has been persistently partial, uneven, and skeptical, yet it holds a central place in anthropology. This article argues that shamans have been cast as translators of the unseen and as sites of anxiety shaped by encounters across gender, class, and colonial incursions often defined by race. Anthropologists, in building a vast library of shamanic practice, have found in diverse spirit practitioners translators across social worlds who resemble themselves, suggesting that the figure of the shaman reveals a remarkable history of anthropology itself.