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Shamanism and Charisma: Reflections on the Problem of Enchantment in Modernity
Author(s) -
Reddekop Jarrad
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
studies in ethnicity and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.204
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1754-9469
pISSN - 1473-8481
DOI - 10.1111/j.1754-9469.2011.01086.x
Subject(s) - shamanism , disenchantment , charisma , modernity , politics , epistemology , meaning (existential) , sociology , consciousness , aesthetics , philosophy , law , theology , political science
This article investigates the ways in which South American shamanism might be analysed in terms of the Weberian concept of charisma, and to ask what is at stake in doing so. It is suggested that this problem might be more rigorously approached by way of a detour through Weber's account of disenchantment, which poses questions about the theological heritage with which our contemporary philosophical and methodological thought is interwoven, and about the particularity of that heritage. As a consequence, it is suggested that contemporary modulations of shamanism can productively problematise customary accounts of the meaning and structure of charisma and of the ways it must be thought to relate to politics in modernity.