The Animistic Turn:Implications for the Anthropology of the Anima

In the anthropology of the 1950’s if researchers"went native",it might doom them academically.Victor Turner and I spent two and a half years among the Ndembu of Zambia.The people believed in spirits,and like many researchers we merely studied their beliefs.Anthropologists were reducing the phenomena

In the anthropology of the 1950＇s if researchers ＂went native＂ , it might doom them academically. Victor Turner and I spent two and a half years among the Ndembu of Zambia. The people believed in spirits, and like many researchers we merely studied their beliefs. Anthropologists were reducing the phenomena of spirits to what they termed ＂a social construction of reality＂ . They were denying the people＇s eo-evalness with them whenever the events they witnessed were concerned with the spirit world. The people, nonetheless, extended their gift to Turner and myself--the gift of their vision and ritual. Now a wider change has intervened. The academic denial has nearly gone.