The Anthropology of Uncertainty: Magic, Witchcraft and Risk and Forensic Implications

This paper examines the Anthropology of Uncertainty. After a discussion of what constitutes uncertainty I examine various ways of dealing with this in non-western cultures: witchcraft, magic and religion. I then moveonto a discussion of contemporary aspects of risk in Western societies. I discuss its historical emergence and the relationship between risk, sin and taboo. Witchcraft, religion and risk all provide explanatory framework for misfortune. Witchcraft also involves issues of accountability. This is similarly the case for risk. Both witchcraft and risk have forensic implications. I illustrate this by the work of Mary Douglas.

All societies have to cope with uncertainty, the fact that the future is unpredictable, and to account for past misfortunes. Anthropological theory has generally privileged the regularities of everyday life, paying less attention to irregular events that disrupt the social order. Uncertainty and irregularity run closely together. Cooper and Pratten assert that uncertainty exists in a complex semantic field, associated with a family of concepts including insecurity, indeterminacy, risk, ambiguity, ambivalence and obscurity mixed with confusion; chance possibility.