| Title | The Sorcerer as Folk Devil in Contemporary Melanesia |
|---|---|
| Contributor | Tom Bratrud (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-13-3 |
| License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Publisher | Helsinki University Press |
| Published on | 2021-12-13 |
| Long abstract | This chapter ethnographically explores a Christian revival movement in Vanuatu led by children. Examining events surrounding the hanging of two adults accused of sorcery, the text challenges the assumption that moral panics are only created with the assistance of mass media. Instead, the chapter shows that they also arise in contexts where gossip, dreams and visions play a similar role in both defining social problems and moral panic. |
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Tom Bratrud is Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo. He received his Ph.D from the same institution in 2018. Before re-joining the University of Oslo he was associate professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway. Bratrud has worked with Vanuatu in the South Pacific since 2010 and has recently started doing ethnographic research in rural Norway. His monograph Fire on the Island: Fear, Hope and a Christian Revival in Vanuatu will be published by Berghahn Books in 2022.