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The magic of guns:
Author(s) -
KIVLAND CHELSEY L.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12670
Subject(s) - magic (telescope) , gun violence , sovereignty , sociology , subjectivity , performativity , agency (philosophy) , politics , law , media studies , political science , gender studies , poison control , suicide prevention , social science , epistemology , philosophy , environmental health , quantum mechanics , physics , medicine
When urban Haitians recounted stories of gun violence, they infused the gun with transformative effects on subjectivity and agency. Touching a gun was said to magically change people and what they were capable of in the world. The magic of the gun was predicated on its ability to provide “scripts” for violent ways of being and acting in the world. These gun stories inspire a novel theorization of the gun as a scriptive technology. The gun's technological design and how it has been used in previous scenarios of political authority and violence lead people to act and be recognized as chèfs (chiefs), a model of black masculine popular sovereignty born in the life worlds of young men on the margins of Port‐au‐Prince. [ guns , magic , violence , technology , performativity , human‐gun composite , Haiti ]