Slippage: An Anthropology of Shamanism

The study of shamanism has been persistently partial, uneven, and skeptical, yet it holds a central place in anthropology. This article argues that shamans have been cast as translators of the unseen and as sites of anxiety shaped by encounters across gender, class, and colonial incursions often defined by race. Anthropologists, in building a vast library of shamanic practice, have found in diverse spirit practitioners translators across social worlds who resemble themselves, suggesting that the figure of the shaman reveals a remarkable history of anthropology itself.

Study at a glance

Abstract

If our knowledge of shamanism has been so abidingly partial, so impressively uneven, so deeply varied by history, and so enduringly skeptical for so long, how has its study come to occupy such pride of place in the anthropological canon? One answer comes in a history of social relations where shamans both are cast as translators of the unseen and are themselves sites of anxiety in a very real world, one of encounters across lines of gender, class, and colonial incursions often defined by race. This article contends that as anthropologists have cultivated a long and growing library of shamanic practice, many appear to have found, in a globally diverse range of spirit practitioners, translators across social worlds who are not unlike themselves, suggesting that in the shaman we find a remarkable history of anthropology.