A life worth telling?
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Author: Nancy Munn
Religious and scientific aspects of Mandombe
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
The invention of Inventing an African alphabet: Notes on the backstage of the production of anthropological knowledge
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Response
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
A drum that speaks
This photographic essay presents material and findings from a documentation project on the gugu (slit drum) carried out in Western Equatoria State of South Sudan between 2021 and 2023. These wooden drums, which can stand up to five feet high, are often…
“Deaths by guns will never outnumber magic”: New oracles among the Azande
Benge, the famous chicken poison oracle that Evans-Pritchard vividly described in his classic ethnography, subsequently disappeared from Zande lore. While contemporary Azande still talk about the vanished benge sorrowfully, the society turned to a neig…
The kingdom, the witch, and the general
In Western Equatoria, South Sudan, witchcraft accusations enable a narrativization of the material processes of predation that undergird the state, in a sphere adjacent to that of formal politics. These accusations critique the political economy of the…
How newness enters the world
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Reading between the bricks
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Witchcraft, disputes, and trials among the Azande (2014–2016)
Mangu, what Evans-Pritchard translated into English as “witchcraft” and around which he built his landmark ethnography, has disappeared among the South Sudanese Azande. But other kinds of witchcraft and magic (ngua) arise continuously. Drawing on anthr…
Writing in the DRC: The creation of Mandombe, an African alphabet
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Can we wash away love with bleach? Affect, gender, and agency in Western Amazonia
Although some Kakataibo women say that their elders did not know romantic love and that they learned it only recently by going to the city, that romantic love is actually having a hard time taking root in Indigenous Amazonia. This article explores some…
“They consider themselves very different”: Disparate dreams of Zande governance across the South Sudan-Central African Republic borderland
This article unpacks the different trajectories of a once-unified Zande people through a focus on their respective positions in the nation-states of South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR). While the Zande people live at the margins of their…
As through a glass darkly: Rethinking sincerity through the lens of ikhlāṣ
Standard Euro-American ideas of sincerity revolve around an idea of the transparent alignment of one’s outer acts with the inner self, such that the audience can clearly deduce the latter from the former. The development and spread of such ideas has be…
Android existence: The affect of artificial vitality
This article investigates the affective vitality of the technical in Japanese android-making through the creation of the android Alter and its artistic performance in the “android opera” Scary Beauty. By following the technical processes invested in Al…
Ephemeral utopia: Aesthetics of the self and the community on the Syrian journey
This article examines the flux and reflux of commitment to jihad among immigrants to Syria. Contrary to a linear and often teleological view of commitment to jihad—radical individuals joining the most radical contemporary organization—migration to Syri…
Seeing otherwise: Landscape change and sensory experience in the West African savannah
Seeing landscapes change seems to be an inevitable and ubiquitous experience in times of global warming. Yet, landscape change is often underestimated, depending on how that change is perceived, experienced, and articulated over time. Like other agricu…
“This kingdom will not be like the kingdom(s) in the era of Gbudue”: On the rebirth of the Azande Kingdom
Colonial rule in Sudan altered kingship and ended the kingdom among the Azande and neighboring groups. Yet the ruling clan, the Avongara, and the lineage of the precolonial Azande kings and chiefs continued. A century elapsed before a new institution, …
Revisiting the Azande
This introduction to a special section, “Revisiting the Azande,” summarizes the historical context and theoretical insights of the classic ethnography Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande, by E. E. Evans-Pritchard. It describes developments …
Rereading Witchcraft, oracles, and magic among the Azande, fifty-five years later
Rereading Evans-Prichard’s classic fifty-five years later turned out to be a confusing experience. On the one hand, it confirmed the admiration I always had for the author’s clarity and the quality of his ethnography. On the other, there seemed to be a…
Tradition, transformation, and charting futures
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Community-building and resilience in Uyghur meshrep in Kazakhstan
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Dancing, singing, and ethnography as political acts
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Central Asian sociabilities
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory
Them-you-us
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory