The Failure of Therapy: Belief, Embodiment and the Limits of Pentecostal Healing in Papua New Guinea

Eves, Richard

doi:10.1080/00141844.2020.1801786

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Cases of mental illness ( labaulang or larangtangku ) as well as abnormalities or arrested development in babies are also ascribed to lagas . Normally, people who seek contact with such beings empower their bodies through an ascetic regime of fasting and sexual abstinence (Eves 1998:170, 2022:593). This not only empowers their bodies, so that they are able to withstand the deleterious effects of lagas , but also allows the lagas to be seen in dreams.…”

Section: The Magic Of Exchange – Lavaxatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there is one benign type of lagas , which lives quite close to humans, an encounter with one of the more malevolent lagas that live in the forest can have serious consequences for the person. Their ears are said to become blocked, their life force or ‘spirit’ may leave their body (which renders the person unconscious until it returns), and the person becomes temporarily disorientated, losing the capacity to think and reason (see Eves 1998:170–172, 2022:593). Cases of mental illness ( labaulang or larangtangku ) as well as abnormalities or arrested development in babies are also ascribed to lagas .…”

Section: The Magic Of Exchange – Lavaxatmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coercive Exchange: Magic, Agency and the Gift in a Melanesian Society

Eves

2023

Oceania

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Here I offer a challenge to some of the theoretical truisms that have developed concerning gift exchange, which has been a topic of scholarly debate for almost a century. Much discussion has focussed on how giving creates obligations and increases the power of the giver. Taking the case of the Lelet of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, I examine how people use magic to usurp the agency of the giver, thus forcing them to give through 'coercive exchange'. Magic, I argue, has the capacity to upend how obligation is understood to operate. People give, not because of the customary social obligation, but because magic has been used to extract their wealth.

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Section: The Magic Of Exchange – Lavaxatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Magic Of Exchange – Lavaxatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coercive Exchange: Magic, Agency and the Gift in a Melanesian Society

Eves

2023

Oceania

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“…Even those who are vocal in their opposition to witch‐hunts appear to allow that witchcraft exists when they say, ‘If you believe in them, then this something will come inside you’. Certainly, it has been reported elsewhere in PNG that the power of Christianity or magic to treat illness is dependent on committed and exclusive belief in either one or the other (Eves 2020 a ; 2020 b ).…”

Section: Questioning Witchcraftmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…55Belief is a contested category and its use has been subject to criticism (Eves 2020 b ; Good 1994; Robbins 2007). Good, for example, writes that: ‘Knowledge requires both certitude and correctness; belief implies uncertainty, error, or both’ (1994: 17).…”

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confidence: 99%

Sanguma and scepticism: questioning witchcraft in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

Eves

2021

Royal Anthropological Inst

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Some anthropologists prefer clear-cut depictions of the societies they study, preferring to ignore differences of opinion, failures of belief, and expressions of scepticism and doubt. This tendency is increasingly being challenged, and an emerging literature now explores scepticism. Contributing to this literature, I discuss the scepticism towards witchcraft expressed by my interlocutors in the Papua New Guinea highlands province of Chimbu. I do not juxtapose witchcraft to science, for witchcraft must be taken seriously -especially since accusations often have severe consequences. Expressions of scepticism bring into doubt the absolute certainty of witchcraft as the explanation for misfortunes such as illness and death, and its study provides a more nuanced picture of a society, showing how cultural norms can be transformed and the foundations of violence can be disrupted. This applies to the scepticism I heard expressed, because the challenge it poses to witchcraft accusations may help prevent further violence. An anthropology of scepticism could usefully be applied more broadly to many aspects of culture, since study of scepticism is one way of reaching an understanding of how social change occurs.People regularly deal with the uncertainties of life, and particularly with misfortunes such as illness and death, by seeking explanations from within their own culture (Buyandelgeriyn 2007;Calkins 2019;Niehaus 2013;Whyte 1990;. These cultural explanatory frameworks seek to impose order on those uncertainties, making them understandable and possibly preventable. In examining these explanatory frameworks, it is important not to over-systematize, thus giving coherence to occurrences that may be subject to considerable contradiction and contestation. Goody, for example, argues that such counter-narratives are often downplayed by ethnographers in tidily construing their object of study. The 'holistic approach to custom, to normative situations and to moeurs' , he writes, 'tends to exaggerate … [one] side of the situation and to neglect absences or failures of belief, and the existence of doubt' (1996: 677; see also Niehaus 2013: 654; Pelkmans 2013: 11). 1 Here I take up Goody's call, being interested in the ways in which scepticism sometimes arises in relation to witchcraft as an explanatory framework for illness and death. Other scholars have also addressed the issue of scepticism, including in relation to witchcraft. Much like Goody, Ashforth argues that 'it is a mistake to presume

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‘He Should Party a Little Less’: Evolving Orthodox Religiosities in Psychotherapeutic Interventions Among Jewish Gay Men

Bar Dror,

Goodman

2023

Cult Med Psychiatry

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The Failure of Therapy: Belief, Embodiment and the Limits of Pentecostal Healing in Papua New Guinea

Cited by 5 publications

References 48 publications

Coercive Exchange: Magic, Agency and the Gift in a Melanesian Society

Coercive Exchange: Magic, Agency and the Gift in a Melanesian Society

Sanguma and scepticism: questioning witchcraft in the highlands of Papua New Guinea

‘He Should Party a Little Less’: Evolving Orthodox Religiosities in Psychotherapeutic Interventions Among Jewish Gay Men

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