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dc.contributor.authorIrvine, Richard Denis Gerard
dc.contributor.authorKyriakides, Theodoros
dc.date.accessioned2021-02-05T00:38:33Z
dc.date.available2021-02-05T00:38:33Z
dc.date.issued2019-02-05
dc.identifier.citationIrvine , R D G & Kyriakides , T 2019 , ' Just out of reach: an ethnographic theory of magic and rationalisation ' , Implicit Religion , vol. 21 , no. 2 , pp. 202-222 . https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.37139en
dc.identifier.issn1463-9955
dc.identifier.otherPURE: 257732860
dc.identifier.otherPURE UUID: 2c294f2a-c50f-4d12-b05b-dd2cab11dc3e
dc.identifier.otherScopus: 85061649578
dc.identifier.otherORCID: /0000-0003-0468-4510/work/90112673
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/21380
dc.descriptionThis research has been supported by the grant “Magical thinking in contexts and situations of unbelief,” part of the Understanding Unbelief programme, funded by the John Templeton Foundation (JTF grant ID# 60624) and managed by the University of Kent.en
dc.description.abstractPerceived in their ideal forms, rationalisation and magic might seem to oppose one another. In this paper, however, rather than placing these forces in sterile opposition, we instead explore the social and relational dynamics through which rationalisation - the dominant epistemological force of modernity – in certain cases provides the conditions of doubt, opacity, and unknowability that makes magical thinking manifest in the everyday mundane. We explore such theoretical suggestions through ethnographic research conducted in Orkney and Cyprus. By examining connections between rationalisation and magic as these historically unfolded in these two different island settings, we initially provide a depiction of how the project of rationalisation led to the decline of magic in our two fieldsites. Then, by focusing on everyday manifestations of magical thinking, we nevertheless proceed to showcase how rationalisation and magic appear to sustain one other through an unresolved, generative tenson, emergent of the incapacity of the former to fully sublate the latter in its requirement to ‘know’ the world. The trajectory of rationalisation means that there is nothing unknowable in the world, and yet, from the position of any given person, there is no knowable whole. It remains out of reach. We conclude by discussing how the tensions inherent in the relation between rationalisation and magic allow for further theorising about the dimension of unknowing that permeates contemporary public epistemologies and subjectivities.
dc.language.isoeng
dc.relation.ispartofImplicit Religionen
dc.rights© 2019 Equinox Publishing Ltd. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.37139en
dc.subjectMagicen
dc.subjectRationalisationen
dc.subjectEpistemologyen
dc.subjectMemoryen
dc.subjectOrkneyen
dc.subjectCyprusen
dc.subjectGN Anthropologyen
dc.subjectNDASen
dc.subject.lccGNen
dc.titleJust out of reach: an ethnographic theory of magic and rationalisationen
dc.typeJournal articleen
dc.description.versionPostprinten
dc.contributor.institutionUniversity of St Andrews. Social Anthropologyen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1558/imre.37139
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.date.embargoedUntil2021-02-05


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