Trans-formation, Fiona Bowie & Oliver Davies

 

Trans-formation

pp.123-145 in Nicolete Burbach and Lisa Sowle Cahill (eds)

Trans Life and the Catholic Church Today, T&T Clark, 2024

In this chapter we have sought, as husband and wife and as parents, to reflect on our individual and shared experience of bringing up a young person who happens to be trans. We are both (retired) academics. Oliver, a Roman Catholic and lay Dominican, studied modern languages and literature before taking up a chair in Christian theology. Fiona is an Anglican and an anthropologist with a speciality in the anthropology of religion. We trust that our different disciplinary perspectives are in dialogue with one another and with the themes of this volume.

Witchcraft and Bullying - book chapter

 Available for viewing or download from Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/document/626533313/Witchcraft-and-Bullying-La-Violence-Insidieuse 

Introduction

One angle from which to investigate witchcraft and bullying is that of intention. Intention has three parts, (1) the subject with the intention, (2) the object of attention and (3) the plan or aim to achieve a particular goal. Witchcraft can be regarded as conscious or unconscious, but there is an assumption that it reflects something about the heart or desires of the witch towards a person, object, or situation. When negative psychic energy is directed towards this object of attention there will be a corresponding negative effect upon the target unless remedial action is taken. In a circular process, the aggressor might also be a victim of psychic attack, as protective actions can cause violent intentions to rebound. The role of negative intention and the energy it generates in human society and in individuals will be examined briefly in three ethnographic contexts. In Paul Stoller’s (1987) work on sorcery in Niger, West Africa, witchcraft/sorcery is culturally normative and part of everyday discourse.1 Specialists in sorcery are well-known figures within their communities. In Jean Favret-Saada’s (1980, 1981, 2015) studies of witchcraft accusations among peasant farmers in northwestern France, witchcraft is generally hidden and referred to obliquely. Its full workings are only apparent to those ‘caught up’ in it. In the third example, Fiona Bowie’s work among spirit release practitioners and health professionals in the United Kingdom, notions of witchcraft, sorcery, possession and psychic attack are culturally marginal and their intrusion into people’s lives is generally shocking and unexpected. Contrasting these three examples allows us to explore the role of cultural discourses concerning witchcraft in relation to the processes, techniques and outcomes for aggressor and victim. Where witchcraft beliefs and practices are normative there are generally established healers/anti-witchers and recognised means of dealing with psychic attack. Where it does not form part of the wider cultural discourse, the victim has to work harder to find meaning and a context for their experience, and to find support in dealing with it. Both witchcraft and bullying are forms of violence in which relationships are central and in which victims and aggressors almost always know each other. The moral harm that results reflects relationships that have gone wrong in some way.

Working with Angels: Energy Healing and Spiritual Pathways | Fiona Bowie

RAI Book Launch: Social Anthropologies of the Welsh, 29th July 2022

 

Book Launch: Social Anthropologies of the Welsh

Social Anthropologies of the Welsh: Past and Present

with editors
Prof W. John Morgan (Cardiff University)
Dr Fiona Bowie (Oxford University)

contributors
Dr Elaine Forde (Swansea University)
Prof Chris Hann (Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology)
Dr Rhys Dafydd Jones (Aberystwyth University)
Prof Huw Pryce (Bangor University)

It can now be watched here  

Asking the perennial question, 'Who are the Welsh?', this collection illustrates the history of anthropology in Wales and its distinctive contributions to this debate. Its essays range from the ethnographic insights of Gerald of Wales in the twelfth century, to analyses of the multicultural Wales of today. Contributors discuss the legacy of Iorwerth Peate, co-founder of the Welsh Folk Museum of St Fagans (now the National Museum of History), and the schools of research pioneering community studies of Welsh rural life in the second half of the twentieth century. Writings on the changing nature of family relations in de-industrialized settings such as the 1950s 'new' town of Cwmbrân and a contemporary Welsh public-housing estate provide new insights, while research on shifting patterns of religious adherence re-examine what has often been seen as a defining characteristic of Welsh society. Case studies on the challenges faced by European immigrants in Wales post Brexit and the Welsh diaspora in Patagonia add a global dimension.The interdisciplinary nature of anthropology as practised in Wales brings both a richness and openness born of collaboration. Revealing both the startling variety and continuity of Welsh life and identity, certain themes consistently emerge: connections with place and the natural world as a way of being Welsh, the complex meanings of language in identity formation and the role of kinship in giving a sense of belonging to the Welsh nation.

The book is published by Sean Kingston Publishers and available here