Conjuring Hope: Magic and Healing In Contemporary Russia (Epistemologies of Healing)

Notions of magic and healing have been changing over past years and are now understood as reflecting local ideas of power and agency, as well as structures of self, subjectivity and affect. This study focuses on contemporary urban Russia and, through exploring social conditions, conveys the experience of living that makes magic logical. By following people's own interpretations of the work of magic, the author succeeds in unraveling the logic of local practice and local understanding of affliction, commonly used to diagnose the experiences of illness and misfortune. "Notions of magic and healing have been changing over past years and are now understood to reflect local ideas of power and agency, as well as structures of self, subjectivity, and affect. This study focuses on contemporary urban Russia and, through exploring social conditions, conveys the experience of living that makes magic logical. Adopting phenomenological and semiotic approaches to people's own experience of the work of magic, the author starts to unravel the logic at local practice and the local understanding of affliction commonly used to diagnose experiences of illness and misfortune."--Jacket