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Anthropological study of magical contingency and communalities

Research period:2024.10-2027.3

TSUMURA Fumihiko

Keywords

magic, contingency, communality

Objectives

This research project will explore how magic is shared socially via affects such as fear, surprise, and laughter in a contingency-filled world. The applicants had previously conducted research on how magic is experienced as something accompanying reality.[1] That research was on magic practitioners, their clients (people), tools and places (things), language, and sensations, but this project will take a new and different approach. Rather than objectifying magic practitioners and magical practice based on their reality and efficacy, the project will broadly objectify magical practice considered to be not worth believing in and everyday semi-magical and non-magical practice that is not part of magic practitioners’ work. We will also examine the process in which such practice invokes particular affects in individuals and the process in which it is accepted by people and produces communality, despite individuals having different affects toward it. Specifically, in addition to prayers and religious medical treatment, the project will take up other practices related to contingency such as gambling, economic activities, entertainment, and medical care, and examine the modalities of magical knowledge and practice in the contemporary world full of contingency.