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PhD Research Proposal

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RESEARCH DIVISION
Office of Graduate Studies

Research Higher Degree

Confirmation Year Requirement
CANDIDATE COVER SHEET
Candidate Details: Candidates complete section 1 and sign the declaration. Attach this form to your written proposal
and provide this documentation to your principal supervisor. Keep a copy of the documents for your own records.
Name: Student No:
Emma Quilty c3130255
Current enrolment: Are you applying for a transfer of program as
part of this process?
 M Phil X PhD
 X Full time
  Part time  Yes X No

School of Humanities and Social Science Faculty of Education and Arts

School and Faculty:
5 2 14
Candidature Commencement Date:……./…./….. Date of Confirmation: ……/………/…..

Please list all supervisors associated with your candidature and the % of the supervisory load.
Principal Supervisor:
Dr Daniela Heil 60%
% of supervision:
Co-Supervisor:
Dr Lena Rodriguez 40%
% of supervision:
Co-Supervisor:
% of supervision:

Research Topic: Places to go: Witches to see

Alternative Counter-Cultural Spiritual Practices Among Australian Youth

Declaration and Signature:

I have read and understood the Confirmation Year Guidelines and the Code of Practice for Research Higher
Degree Candidature in relation to confirmation year requirements:
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/students/research-higher-degree/current-students/confirmation-year.html
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/policy/000061.html
I have read and understood the issues related to:
Ethics and Safety YES  x N/A 
Intellectual Property YES  x N/A 
Data Retention YES  x N/A 
Detailed information is available:
Ethics and Safety http://www.newcastle.edu.au/students/research-higher-degree/candidates-guide/ethics.html
Intellectual Property Policy http://www.newcastle.edu.au/policylibrary/000831.html
Data Retention http://www.newcastle.edu.au/research/rhd/docs/Code_Responsible_Conduct_Research.pdf
22.1.15
Signature________________________________ Date:____________________________
2. Principal Supervisor Statement: Complete this section and provide all of the documents to the Chair of the
Confirmation Committee.

x
 The candidate is well prepared to undertake the confirmation of candidature process.
YES x NO  UNSURE 

If NO OR UNSURE, provide a statement regarding your concerns (attach a separate page if necessary):

Signature________________________________ 22.1.15
Date:____________________________
 PhD Research Proposal:
Emma Quilty

Discipline of Sociology and Anthropology

Places to Go: Witches to See

Alternative Counter-Cultural Spiritual Practices among
Australian Youth

Principal Supervisor: Dr Daniela Heil

Co-Supervisor: Dr Lena Rodriguez

School of Humanities and Social Science

Faculty of Education and Arts

University of Newcastle

Callaghan NSW 2308

1
Table of Contents

1. Research Objectives and Questions .................................................................................................... 4

1.1 Research Objectives ...................................................................................................................... 4
1.2 Research Questions ...................................................................................................................... 4
2. Introduction of Research Proposal ..................................................................................................... 5
2.1 Statement of the Topic ................................................................................................................. 5
2.2 Background to Research ............................................................................................................... 5
2.3 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................................... 7
3. Review of the Literature ..................................................................................................................... 8
3.1 Introduction to Literature Review ................................................................................................ 8
3.2 Overview of representations of women’s engagement with witchcraft and the witch ............... 8
3.2.1 Witch in Discourse: An overview of understandings of ‘the witch’ from modernity to post-
modernity............................................................................................................................................ 9
3.2.2 An overview of phenomenology and gender: young women and processes of identity
formation .......................................................................................................................................... 10
3.2.3 Witchcraft Rituals: Transforming consciousness on an individual and group level ................ 14
3.2.4 The Modern Witch: motivations and modes of embodying the witch .................................... 16
3.3 Women in their places: creating new places, producing female centred ritual spaces ............ 17
3.3.1 The significance of somatic experiences within witchcraft rituals .......................................... 19
3.3.2 Researching lived bodily experiences: current conceptualisations of the Cartesian dichotomy
and preobjective ............................................................................................................................... 20
3.3.3 A phenomenological consideration of experiential participation and performativity in ritual
.......................................................................................................................................................... 21
3.3.4 Liminality and embodiment in ritual spaces ............................................................................ 23
3.4 Conceptualising Perception and Embodiment ........................................................................... 24
3.4.1 The body in the world: understanding how the body as subject perceives the world as well as
itself................................................................................................................................................... 26
3.4.2 How embodiment allows young practitioners to experience ‘being in the world’ ................. 27
3.5 A phenomenological framework for considering the conscious and unconscious modes of
embodiment and ritual making ........................................................................................................ 29
3.6 Counter-cultural religious and spiritual practices: a review of the semiotics ............................ 32
3.6.1 A semiotic approach to studying embodied practices and processes ..................................... 33
3.6.2 The semiotic significance of utilising the witch for political action ......................................... 34
3.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 36
4. Methodology ..................................................................................................................................... 37

2
 4.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 37
4.2 Recruitment ................................................................................................................................ 38
4.3 Research Design .......................................................................................................................... 40
4.3.1 Participant Observation ........................................................................................................... 40
4.3.2 Semi-Structured Interviews ..................................................................................................... 42
4.4 Situating the Field: Ethnographic Research ................................................................................ 44
5. Draft Table of Contents for PhD Thesis ............................................................................................. 46
6. Timetable for Completion of the Thesis ........................................................................................... 48
7. Budget and Resource Description..................................................................................................... 50
8. List of References .............................................................................................................................. 50

3
1. Research Objectives and Questions

1.1 Research Objectives

1. The proposed research seeks to provide an analysis of the experiences and

perspectives of young female Australians involved in the counter-cultural spiritual
practices of witchcraft. Hence, the research project will explore why young
women choose to engage with films, texts, imagery and practices in regard to
notions of the witch, as well as witchcraft.
2. The research project will examine how young people, with a particular emphasis
on young women, are continually reconstituting understandings of their identity,
gender and the body.
3. The proposed research will focus on the concept of embodiment as culturally
constructed - addressing and situating the relationship between the person and
the world - as oriented in the body, as well as in reference to the body as both
subject and object.

1.2 Research Questions

To examine the experiences and perspectives of young Australians involved in the

counter-cultural spiritual practices of witchcraft with a focus on women.

i) What are the current avenues of engagement of young people in relation

to witchcraft rituals and beliefs in Australia?

ii) Using ethnographically grounded analysis, how do these perspectives and

practices inform young people’s identity?

4
2. Introduction of Research Proposal

2.1 Statement of the Topic

The proposed research aims to explore the experiences and perspectives of young
Australians, with a particular emphasis on young women, involved in the counter-
cultural spiritual practices of witchcraft. The key focus of this research will be on
women, and aim to reflect an exploration and analysis of witchcraft and its
relationship to the feminine. The scope of this project cannot allow for an in-depth
analysis of both men and women’s understandings and involvement in witchcraft.
This research gives primacy to the female body in ritual as the objective source and
subjective agent of identity. Further, there will also be an examination of how young
women are continually reconstituting understandings of identity, gender and the
body. The analysis of experiences and perspectives proposed in this research will be
explored through the theoretical approach of embodiment. Utilising this approach,
the relationship between the person and the world is negotiated by the body being
viewed as both “subject” and “object”. Employing embodiment as a theoretical and
methodological framework, this research proposal will investigate the implicit and
explicit bodily experiences and interpretations of participants. This research will also
explore the practical and perceived spiritual dimensions of witchcraft rituals.

2.2 Background to Research

With my Honours research, I explored the spiritual beliefs and lived realities of
priestesses and practitioners of Voodoo in New Orleans. In a similar form, this
proposed research seeks to better understand the motivations and understandings
of young Australians involved in the counter-cultural spiritual practices of witchcraft
with a focus on female practitioners.

Historically the witch represents an example of alternative or counter-cultural

femineity. The field of anthropological and sociological research that study women
who practice and identify as witches has been dominated by British and American
schools of research (Morgan 1982; Luhrmann 1989; Greenwood 2000). In a more
local context, Hume (1999) published her work detailing her five year ethnographic
study within the witch and pagan communities of Australia and Canada. Feminist
witches in New Zealand were the primary subjects of Rountree’s (2003) doctoral

5
research. Similarly, Magliocco (2006) conducted an ethnography on the pagan
movement in America. A large study conducted by Berger and Ezzy (2007) focused
on interviewing teenage witches across London, Australia and the USA. However,
this research proposal aims to achieve a depth of analysis. Therefore, this
ethnographic study will focus on young women who live in Australia. Further, this
research will utilise a phenomenological approach to examine the lived experiences
of participants. Berger and Ezzy’s (2007) study on the other hand aimed to
contribute to sociological understandings of religion in post-modernity.

Two things became apparent while researching for the literature review for this
research proposal. Firstly, the surprisingly large number of people practicing
witchcraft is at odds with its wider lack of visibility in the public. In the 2011 census,
32,083 Australians identified their religion as a Pagan, including 8,413 people who
identified their religion as Wicca or Witchcraft. However, this figure remains
contested in the literature on Australian witchcraft, as Hume (1997) and Ezzy (2003)
argue, there are those who choose to not identify themselves in the census. Second,
there is a dearth of available anthropological and sociological work that focuses on
Australian witchcraft.

Because there is scarce Australian academic literature available on witchcraft, little is

understood regarding the historical specificity of witchcraft or the diversity of
situations, locations, and contexts it takes place. For instance, Hume’s (1997) work
represents the most recent broad anthropological study of witchcraft in Australia.
She found that interest in witchcraft and associated beliefs became more popular
and prevalent in the late 1960s and 1970s when there was a growth of interest in
New Age ideas, Neo-Paganism and witchcraft. She notes that several small and less
well known groups sprang up throughout Australia during this period, their members
pursuing an alternative lifestyle on farming communities in rural and varied areas.

A preliminary reading of the available literature reveals that since the 1970s, women
seeking an alternative spiritual worldview have also shared concerns regarding the
environment and feminism, and have thus creatively woven them together with older
religious models of polytheism, animism and mythology. In recognition of the unique
circumstances that shape the experiences and perspectives of those who engage in
alternative spiritual or religious practices, the proposed research utilises the term

6
‘witch’ to refer to the distinctive position witchcraft occupies in the Australian religious
landscape. Within the framework of this research proposal, when I use the term
witch, I refer to Hume’s (1997) definition of witchcraft as:

‘… a movement that is not centred around a basic doctrine or theological

assumption; rather, it is based on a pervasive ideology with its own
dynamic, at first kindled by an individual’s interest in the non-material
world, sparked by the imagination and fired by a fascination with the
occult‘ (Hume 1997: 1-2).

Previous studies of witchcraft have not included a substantial exploration of the

rapid expansion of social media and the internet more generally in regard to the
influence and options available to young people. The global nature of social
media means young people have unprecedented access to information and each
other. Further, in the last decade, there has been a great number of popular
television series and films about young witches such Charmed, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer, AHS: Coven, and Salem. Therefore, this research project will
explore the impact of the witch on young women’s understandings of their
identity, gender and the body.

2.3 Significance of the Study

In Australia, the experiences and perspectives of young women who practice

witchcraft remain under-explored. This gap represents a potential research
opportunity with the capacity to inform future studies in this area of research.
Currently, the production of knowledge remains clustered in a relatively narrow range
of geographical sites and demographic target groups (Hume 1997; Ezzy 2003).
Further, there has been a history of epistemological exclusion of the experiences
and perspectives of young female witches from this field of study.

Within the body of ethnographic studies of witchcraft the framework of embodiment

is often under-utilised and so will be emphasised in this research proposal. This
research project will contribute to the social sciences, and to the disciplines of
anthropology and sociology, through a phenomenologically informed ethnography.
Thus, this research project represents an effort to critically explore the possibilities
and challenges for the future theory and practice (Hedda 2013).

7
3. Review of the Literature

3.1 Introduction to Literature Review

The following review of the literature supports the aims and methodological approach
of the proposed research by illustrating critical approaches to women’s engagement
with witchcraft and the witch, the female body in ritual and counter-cultural religious
and spiritual practices. This review includes a discussion of ritual, specifically within
the realm of liminality, wherein individuals become socially and structurally
ambiguous. This ambiguity allows for potential changes to occur, particularly when
young women explore and embody their own perceptions and constructions of
witchcraft and the witch. In light of the primary research question and the
methodological framework, this literature review will also include a critical
examination of phenomenology and the concept of embodiment.

3.2 Overview of representations of women’s engagement with

witchcraft and the witch

Throughout historical, literature and art history witches and their wicked
bodies have not just been seen as cackling women on broomsticks, but
as temptresses, decrepit hags and glamorous teenage spell-casters
(Bovenschen 1978; Morgan 1982; Rountree 1997, 2004; Greenwood
2000; Moseley 2002; Ezzy 2003; Magliocco 2004).

To many people the image of witch is closely associated with Middle-Age imagery,
specifically of the monstrous and evil old hag. In an historical context, during the
Early Modern period in European and North American history (approximately 1400 to
1700) women who were accused of practising witchcraft were tried and executed. It
was during this period that witch hunts and executions were sanctioned by
national/state law and largely carried out by clerical representatives. It is estimated
that anywhere from 70,000 to 2 million executions took place (Barnes 2006). The
lack of primary sources from the accused women makes it difficult to understand the
experiences and perspectives of women accused of witchcraft during this time.
Despite vigorous historical examinations of this period, there is arguably a residual
legacy in the public discourse of negative associations of women and witchcraft.

8
Bovenschen’s (1978) study of modern witchcraft practitioners during 1960s argues
that there is a non-linear relationship between a diffused historical idea of the
witches during the Early Modern period and the experiences of contemporary
women. Contemporary witches who utilise the word ‘witch’ convey an image that
resonates in a ‘moment of experience far beyond their former historical significance’
(1978: 84). Bovenschen argues that the contemporary women of today who identify
as witches, at first glance share little with the historical witches who were burned at
the stake for their witch-hood.

In some countries, contemporary witchcraft practitioners and those accused of being

witches are still subject to suspicion and violence. Accusations of practicing
witchcraft, in some cases, have led to violent and even fatal recriminations. Such
responses have been reported in Sub-Saharan Africa, India and Papua New Guinea
and some areas in Asia (Zocca 2010). In reference to the proposed research, the
historical background to contemporary witchcraft in Australia is concentrated around
the European/Christian experience. However, there will also be an exploration of
broader cultural imagery and practice as many aspects of witchcraft include a cross–
section of cultural influences (Hume 1997).

3.2.1 Witch in Discourse: An overview of understandings of ‘the

witch’ from modernity to post-modernity

For a long time the term ‘witch’ belonged to the repertoire of patriarchal and Christian
discursive control (Barnes 2006). Immense variation exists in relation to how women
were imbued with the properties of being a witch in different eras and different
geographic locations. For example, by the Enlightenment, 17th-18th centuries, the
witch was positioned at the crossroads of feminine civility. On the one hand there
was the Madonna (Summers 2002) the ultimate example female goodness, sacrifice
and caring. On the other end of the spectrum there was the witch, the aggressive
and arguably deliberate male representation of demonic femininity. It is for this
reason, Bovenschen (1978) argues, that women have historically been reluctant or
even scared to call themselves witches, or to be called the latter.

This hesitation stems from the two distinct images of femininity – the virgin/Madonna
and the witch. Bovenschen (1978) contends that the dichotomy of body and mind is
the basis of this division. She argues that the witch signifies the body and it is within

9
this discourse that the female body becomes the embodiment of evil, as well as the
incarnation of the sinful sexual impulses. Luhrmann (1989) builds on this argument
by contending that one of the foundations of contemporary magic relies on
perception, specifically on the perception that thought can affect matter. Successfully
achieving change in this way is dependent on the individual’s capacity to
reconceptualise their perspective, and transcend the idea that there is a complete
dichotomy between the mind and matter, between the subjective and objective. This
relates directly to one of the research aims which is to examine how young people,
with a particular emphasis on young women, are reconstituting understandings of the
witch.

3.2.2 An overview of phenomenology and gender: young women

and processes of identity formation

It is important that this research project acknowledge the notion of individual

consciousness and agency, and to consider individual responsibility for actions. At
the same time, consideration must be given to the ways in which subjectivity is
discursively and socially constructed. In particular, gender needs to be accounted for
as an aspect of subjectivity without essentialising or dehistoricising it.
Phenomenology offers this research project an epistemology and theoretical
approach to gender. This approach avoids objectifying mind-body dualism and
instead emphasises embodied forms of experience. The common feminist distinction
between sex and gender — sex referring to biological difference and gender
meaning its varying social expressions — has been consistent with discourses on
identity (Lock and Farquhar 2007). This research will be exploring the experiences
and perspectives of participants with a particular emphasis on young women and
their formative processes and understandings identity, gender and the body. As
Simone de Beauvoir (1949) once stated, ‘one is not born a woman, but rather
becomes one’. For the purposes of this research proposal, this review of the
literature can only provide a cursory overview of gender and identity. The reason de
Beauvoir’s position is included in this literature review is because unlike her
predecessors her work in phenomenology includes the specificities of women’s
experiences. Her work is also significant because it prompted a phenomenological
approach to gender that suspends the ‘natural attitude’, that is it defamiliarises
conceptual frameworks that are ‘normally’ inhabited.

10
Previous works in phenomenology (Heidegger 1976; Sartre 1956; Merleau-Ponty;
1962) describe lived experiences in a manner that assume the ‘masculine’
experience as the norm. De Beauvoir’s work represents a discursive turn in
phenomenology and prompted a number of key critiques of these inherent
assumptions about gender. One of these key critiques questioned the assumption
that experience is ‘authentic’, specifically because this assumption precludes any
opportunity to consider how experience is ideologically constituted within hegemonic
gender norms (Lock and Farquhar, 2007). Further, this assumption has led to a trend
of generalising accounts of women’s experience. By homogenising the qualities of
some women’s experiences as representative of all, one group’s voice is favoured
whilst others are simultaneously muted. Further, within previous studies of witches
the focus of experiences and perspectives has been on adult practitioners. For
example, while the work of Luhrman (1989), Greenwood (2000) and Hume’s (1997)
are integral to the study of witchcraft, the emphasis on adult experiences excludes
the experiential dimensions of young witch’s accounts of witchcraft. These studies
homogenise the young and adult witch’s experiences or leave them out altogether,
therefore effectively excluding their voice. Within the literature on this topic there is a
need for social researchers to reconceptualise their approach to the gender, the
body and identity. In order to contribute to this area of study, this research proposal
will include a consideration of de Beauvoir’s (1949, 2004) critique of
phenomenology’s approach to gender and how she used phenomenology to re-
conceptualise the relationship women have with their bodies and with the world
through (my emphasis) their bodies.

The body is not a thing, de Beauvoir (1949) argues, it is a situation and a means by
which one grasps the world. Further, she expands on the idea that how one sees the
world depends on how a person engages with it. Consciousness and subjectivity
exist within the body and cannot be severed from the particularities of one’s
embodiment (de Beauvoir 1949). De Beauvoir argues that what is considered the
norm of the ‘human’ experience in phenomenology remains male and that those who
have biologically female bodies are perceived in particular ways because of this
(Evans 2014). The physical characteristics of a woman, de Beauvoir points out
characterise her as men’s ‘other’ because she fails to conform to the norm of the
fully human. What de Beauvoir (2004) suggests about gender is that what it means

11
to be a women is determined and differentiated in relation to men. However, this is
not how men are determined – woman is the ‘other’, therefore a man is the subject,
he is the absolute. As a consequence, the production and sustainability of this
unequal binary depends on the masculinist myths that are woven into the very fabric
of the institutions and practices that affirm female identity as ‘other’. Similar to de
Beauvoir (2004), Alcoff (2006) uses phenomenology to further understand the nature
of gendered identities. She argues, that gendered identities are social, however they
are also ‘most definitely physical, marked on and through the body, lived as material
experience’ (Alcoff 2006).

Gendered experiences and identities, Alcoff (2006) states, are situated in the world.
She makes an important point arguing that they are more than a discursive effect.
Lived experience and identities are open-ended, multilayered, fragmented and
shifting; ‘not because of the play of language, but because of the nature of
embodied, temporal existence’ (2006: 109–10). There are complex processes of
change and transformation that revolve around notions and experiences of gender
and identity. Alcoff extends on de Beauvoir’s critique of phenomenology by exploring
the question that if gendered ways of being in the world are so profoundly embodied
and appear so ‘natural’ that they become invisible, is there a potential for them to be
altered?

For instance, Boddy (1989), studies women undergoing possession in the Zar cult in
North Sudan as a form of embodied resistance or counter-cultural practice. He
argues that, in the experience and performance of trance, women are brought into
touch with their different selves, while the trance unlocks the dominant categories of
identity and gender. In this way meanings are explained as not only representational,
and may be presentational also – embodied. In this example, the dominant gender
order and gendered ways of being in the world are deliberately countered or altered
through the use of trance ritual.

Experience plays a significant role in this argument; it is constructed in social life and
can be seen as both cause and consequence of identity positions. Lock and
Farquhar (2007) argue that individuals manifest many forms of agency and
resistance as part of complex ideological contexts. Some of this resistant activity
takes the form of seeking recognition as an identifiable member of a social group

12
engaged in counter cultural practices. It has proven useful to see identity-work as an
important goal of human constructive activity (Lock and Farquhar 2007).

Lock and Farquhar’s (2007) position on counter-cultural practices and identity-work

relates directly to one of this proposal’s research aims; which is to examine how
young women reconstitute understandings of their identity, gender and body in
relation to counter-cultural practices of witchcraft. As indicated previously this
research project will fill the current literature gap on witchcraft. A large study
conducted by Berger and Ezzy (2007) focused on interviewing teenage witches
across London, Australia and the USA. However, this proposed research diverges
from Berger and Ezzy’s (2007) study through its emphasis on young women and use
of phenomenology to examine the lived experiences of participants.

Aloi (2008) argues that representations of witches, especially young witches, in film
and television, are considered to be influential part of the identity formation process
in young people (Erikson 1950; Strasburger and Wilson 2002). Further, Aloi indicates
that characters from popular television series such as Charmed, Buffy the Vampire
Slayer, The Craft and Practical Magic are major sources of inspiration for young
people’s identity formation and religious or spiritual exploration. What her study
found was that the act of watching these films and television series represents a
significant part of the lived, bodily experience of young women developing their witch
identities. This process is significant to consider when studying young women, who
are continually reconstituting understandings of their identity, gender and the body,
particularly in regard to the potential the ‘witch’ character holds to affect perspectives
about the self. For example, Aloi (2008) observed her participants using the witches
in these films and television series to develop their identity and shape their
perceptions (of themselves and their interactions in the world). The appeal of
adopting characteristics of on-screen witches into their own identities, Aloi argues,
stems from the radical shift from traditional narrative tropes involving female
heroines.

In these films and television series the body is re-conceptualised as the locus of the
witch’s power. The perceptual transformation of the female body is achieved by
presenting the witch as an example of an alternative source of feminine agency. The
embodiment of this power is expressed through the idea that women’s bodies are

13
naturally powerful due to their maternal potential (Aloi 2008). Johnston (2008)
extends on Aloi’s work by arguing that previous negative discourses of the witch
have been inflected by cultural concepts that reconceptualise the witch as an
example of ‘embodied empowerment’. This ‘empowered embodiment’ is available
through the discourses created by these films and television series.

This research proposal considers de Beauvoir (1949, 2004), Alcoff’s (2006) and
Aloi’s (2008) work, and deliberates on whether religious practices might not just have
the effect of reaffirming the ‘depth and impermeability’ of gendered identities. Aloi’s
study suggests that while traditional religious institutions preserve and disseminate
gender and identity norms, they simultaneously become a potential focal point for
counter-cultural practices aimed at disrupting assumptions about gender and
identity. Taking a phenomenological approach to gender reveals what is habitual
while simultaneously unveiling the agency individuals possess to counter processes
that sustain gender binaries. For the purposes of this research proposal,
phenomenology will be utilised as a framework for understanding how people
reconceptualise their social and as well as their embodied gendered identities.

3.2.3 Witchcraft Rituals: Transforming consciousness on an

individual and group level

To understand the young ‘modern’ witch, it is necessary to understand an important

interim period of engagement with the ideas of witchcraft. These could be broadly
allied with the sub-cultural social experimentations of the 1960s and 70s that
continued to be reiterated and expanded upon. Such experimentation has been
variously directed at the individual experience as well as the collective. In particular,
this section will look at previously used approaches to studying witchcraft rituals.

In her study Luhrmann (1989) describes the spontaneous experiential changes she
observed in her participants. These were, she argues, a direct result of being
immersed in new phenomenological experiences that were contingent on intense
imaginative engagement with alternative worldviews. Similarly, Greenwood’s (2000)
anthropological study of contemporary witchcraft and pagan groups in London during
the 1990s, described the experiential and perceptual components of witchcraft. This
approach considered the dimensions of the personal and social experience of the
‘otherworld’. In particular, the group ritual act of trying to achieve collective trance

14
states as well as the individual’s personal experience of a deep shift in
consciousness wherein boundaries between realities become fluid. She found that
‘otherworldly realties’ could be accessed by participants through trance rituals aimed
at shifting one’s consciousness.

Magliocco (2004) conducted further study into the subjective and objective
dimensions of witchcraft rituals, and concluded that initiates consciously prepare
themselves to experience religious ecstasy during their initiation rituals. She argues
that such experiences should not be perceived as deviant behaviour, instead as a
product of a specific series of cultural, social, and religious circumstances that
produce them. Magliocco (2004) builds on Greenwood’s (2000) and Luhrmann’s
(1989) work on witchcraft rituals. In particular, her study concluded that the primary
aim of rituals is to create an affective reaction that facilitates a transformation in an
individual’s consciousness. The social experience of ritual, according to Magliocco
(2004), builds social bonds (Durkheim, 1912) through its creation of powerful,
shared, somatic experiences (Mauss, 1938). Magliocco’s (2004) work addresses
one of the key objectives of this proposed research, which is to explore the
experiential relationship between an individual and the world - as oriented in the
body and the mind - through an investigation of participation in witchcraft rituals.

Rituals are more than a simple set of movements designed to disorientate and/or
focus the participant. The aims of ritual are not separated out into the Cartesian
categories of the mind and body. Magliocco (2004) argues that rituals have the
power to collapse the distinction between object and subject. She also contends that
this power comes from a synthesis between neurological functions and the content
of sacred narratives. Hume (1997) expands on this idea of sacred narratives,
describing ritual as integral to the process through which practitioners align
themselves with particular mythological personas.

Ritual is identified in Magliocco’s (2004) analysis as a central component of

witchcraft practices. On the subject of ecstatic or trance-like experiences within
rituals, Magliocco (2004) considers the physiological effects of such experiential
transformations. Calling on the work of neurologists Newberg and D'Aquili (2001)
she illustrates how ritual plays a significant role in achieving religious experiences
through its transformative potential. Newberg and D'Aquili identify the ability of

15
rhythmic behaviours such as dancing, drumming, and chanting, elements that are
often found in witchcraft rituals, to influence and even change the physiological
patterns of the brain. These behaviours affect how the mind orients itself. For
instance, intense rhythmic behaviours have the potential to alter an individual’s
perception of where their body finishes and the environment begins. Magliocco
argues that this transformative ability is ritualised in witchcraft and has the ability to
bring about unitary experiential transcendence, or ecstatic feelings of unification with
the world. Magliocco brings to Newberg and D'Aquili’s neurological findings together
with her research to present an inclusive reflection of the physiological, religious and
cultural elements of witchcraft rituals.

3.2.4 The Modern Witch: motivations and modes of embodying the

witch

Individuals may study and familiarise themselves with a multitude of deities and
practices from a variety of historical eras and different cultures. As detailed above,
ritual is integral to the process through which practitioners align themselves with
particular mythological personas and narratives. During this process practitioners
may, for example establish a link between themselves, and a chosen deity along
with their corresponding mythological narrative. According to Hume (1997) once a
practitioner makes a connection between the deity and their own life, they begin to
weave this sacred narrative into their own psyche consciously and unconsciously.

Hume’s (1997) research on Australian witchcraft and paganism includes descriptions

of rituals that alter perception and create ecstatic religious experiences. However,
physical restrictions exist when it comes to human consciousness and perception.
As evidenced in her research, within witch communities there was a belief, that there
was the possibility of people being able to move beyond such perceptual restrictions
though altered states of consciousness. Witchcraft rituals are created so these
altered states can be achieved. It is within these liminal spaces, Magliocco (2004)
argues, that an individual’s basic perception and identity become exposed to the
possibility of being changed on a fundamental level. As described above, individuals
often intertwine their own identities with sacred narratives.

Within the communities of self-identified witches, Hume (1997) found that the
symbolism of the witch appeared to have transcended phallocentric imagery. She

16
observed group and individual efforts to incorporate sacred narratives into their lives
and rituals that venerate mythological female figures such as the witch. Hume
argues that this can be interpreted as the celebration and legitimization of femininity
in a feminist spiritual context. The witch is not treated as a superficial character
utilised for theatrics or catharsis, instead her participants reported feeling physically
and emotionally connected to this incarnation of the feminine. It is this intense feeling
of the preobjective experiential that leads to a transformation of previously held ideas
about normative and deviant femininity. Internalizing and venerating a variety of
female deities gave these Australian women the strength and opportunities to
collectively challenge their perception of the world and themselves.

Luhrman (1989), Greenwood (2000) and Hume’s (1997) research confirmed

Bovenschen’s (1978) prediction that women would arise from the inaction of imitating
empowered female figures, in order to completely reject traditional feminine roles.
Bovenschen’s prediction is predicated on her observation that women engage with
the witch on a preobjective experiential level. This engagement occurs through the
mediums of mythological suggestion and processes of identity development. By
evoking the witch in a representational way, women are addressing the symbolic
potential of the feminine. Moving on from this representational mode of engagement,
by embodying the witch, the women in the Luhrman, Greenwood and Hume’s
studies, deliberately aim to engage with the semiotic and discursive sensitivity of the
witch.

3.3 Women in their places: creating new places, producing female

centred ritual spaces

In order to conduct a critical analysis of the female body in ritual this section will
explore the systematic exclusion of women from traditional, patriarchal religions
across several cultural contexts. The marginalisation of women from religious power
occurs predominantly on the grounds that women have been excluded from the
hierarchy of traditional monotheistic religious leadership. This has motivated some
women to seek out or create their own religious sacred spaces (Clement 2001). The
section below outlines current understandings of how the female body orients and is
oriented in ritual (Hume 1997). The body is the site that constitutes the experiential

17
processes of perception and practice (Csordas 1997). Therefore, processes which
emphasise marginalisation will be examined below.

An overview of ritual in non-Anglo-Saxon cultures is important to include in this

literature review. This is because the changes in attitudes towards bodily
experiences are more visible, particularly when examining such experience before
and after colonisation by a European power. For instance, using the example of the
Native American group called the Heiltsuk, Harkin (1994) argues that the body as
object and subject, is the primary field of both transformation and contestation in the
experience of colonialism. There is also the issue of transitioning from ‘traditional’
pre-colonial, to colonial and post-colonial societies. During such transitions the
missionisation of people under the colonial power often occurred. The Heiltsuk
people’s preobjective experience of colonialism precipitated in two forms – in a
therapeutic, medicinal form and in a malevolent form, as witchcraft. Beliefs about the
dark, malevolence of witchcraft and the dark, savage nature of women contributed to
ways of constructing gender difference. Dominance over women has been
deliberately naturalised and encoded on the female body through the medium of
religious ritual and became embedded on social and institutional levels (Harkin
1994).

The historical peripheralisation of women that occurred within traditional religious

denominations has also occurred in Australia. Since Anglo-settlement in Australia,
the predominant religious groups have been Christian, — specifically Protestant and
Catholic (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2014). Both of these religious
denominations have mobilised patriarchal discourses of Anglo-normativity within
Australian society. These discourses were influential in reifying the role of women in
regard to their potential as a wife and mother. In other words, ‘good’ women prioritise
their domestic space. The more familiar denominations have now been joined by a
rapid growth in Pentecostal churches in Australia (Hume 1997). Arguably these have
reinforced a conservative agenda for women. In this way, religion in Australia has
been primarily characterised by the exclusion of women in positions of power.
Because so few studies on women who resist this exclusion have been conducted in
Australia, this literature review will examine international literature regarding women
who resist Christian, patriarchal ideologies, using the witch, in order to explore the
gendered attitudes and theologies that underpin this resistance.

18
In another context, Clement (2001) provides an analysis of Christian beliefs and
rituals that facilitate the social control and oppression of African women. In particular
she observed religious practice as a means of prescribing gender roles and
reinforcing the subordinate position of women. Organised worship, within the context
of traditional monotheistic religions such as Christianity, involves ritualising where
women’s bodies are located in this space. Historically, women fit into patriarchal,
religious structure, according to Kristeva and Clement (2001), as the
unrepresentable ‘other’. Kristeva and Clement argue that the experiential exclusion
of women from monotheistic religious space led to women challenging this
marginalisation. This is reflected in Clement’s study which found that women who
are excluded from representation and from hierarchical power may seek to find or
create an alternative. Kristeva and Clements work on women’s bodies in religious
spaces is pertinent to this research proposal. Particularly, in regards to its aim to
examine current avenues young women have for engaging in counter-cultural
witchcraft rituals and beliefs. When examining the physical, experiential
manifestation of counter cultural responses to this exclusion, the concept of somatics
is particularly useful.

3.3.1 The significance of somatic experiences within witchcraft

rituals

Hume’s (1997) ethnographic account of Australian witchcraft provides an experiential

insight into the somatic processes of the rituals she participated in. Somatics or ‘felt
reactions’ (Blackman 2008) are embodied responses to shared, harmonic
experiences that surpass the purely physical. The theoretical approach of somatics
lends itself to this project and to the study of lived religions generally. For example,
Hume’s (1997) description of the rituals at an Australian pagan festival accords with
Csordas’ (1994) notion of proto-ritual. Csordas’ (1994) conceptualisation of proto-
ritual describes a shared somatic state of the social body that can involve interaction
between bodies in space and time. The lived bodily experience of ritual, in the
context of Hume’s research, includes an entire sensory repertoire – including
breathing, dance movements, the mystery of foreign words, tone and inflection. The
somatic shared response of this particular social group includes a heightened
emotional response and a subsequent transformation of the individual and group’s
perspective and the suspension of reality. This insight into the experiential nature of

19
the female body in ritual supports the aim and methodological approach of this
research project. It does so by illustrating Csordas’ (1994) argument that the bodily
experience is understood as the existential grounds of culture and the sacred.

Within the literature on this topic there is arguably a need for social researchers to
reconceptualise their approach to the body and consciousness within the sacred
space of witchcraft rituals. Instead of separating the two and creating a presumed
binary position it may be more useful to analyse and refer to the body and
consciousness as one. This position is influenced by Csordas’ (1994) work on
embodiment and the sacred self. This approach lends itself to this research
proposal, specifically, examining embodiment as culturally dependent.

3.3.2 Researching lived bodily experiences: current

conceptualisations of the Cartesian dichotomy and preobjective

This section aims to provide an overview of current theoretical approaches to

studying lived bodily experiences. In particular, approaches that address and situate
the relationship between the person and the world - as oriented in the body, as well
as with the body, as both subject and object. The cognitive processes through which
individuals separate mind from body (and spirit from matter), refers to a theoretical
conceptualisation known as the Cartesian dichotomy. As critiqued by Scheper-
Hughes and Lock (1987), the epistemological foundations of this dichotomy of mind
and body are rooted in cultural and historical constructs. The phenomenological
approach of this research project allows for the subjective and objective experiences
to be explored with particular emphasis on the perspective individuals hold
concerning the relationship between (my emphasis) the mind and body. This
dichotomy has presented as a continuing, dominant factor in regard to cultural
understandings and has led to a mechanistic conception of the body in the biological
sciences. What this particular conceptualisation neglects is a consideration of the
mindful causation of somatic states (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987).

Scheper-Hughes and Lock (1987) argue that the current dichotomous

conceptualisations about the body need to be deconstructed. In order to do so, they
employ theoretical conceptualisations about the body that do not separate the mind
and body, but instead begin with the pre-objective and not a separation of mind and
body. Csordas (1989) argues that Merleau-Ponty’s concept of the pre-objective does

20
not mean pre-cultural or pre-linguistic, but refers to the pre-reflective, in other words
what has not been consciously thought about, instead. This approach is pertinent to
this research project, because it involves the phenomenological experience of the
individual body-self. That is, the pre-objective experience refers to the individual
body understood through the lived experience of the body-self (Scheper-Hughes and
Lock 1987: 7). The pre-objective is an important concept to consider in light of this
research projects aim to examine the experiences and perspectives of young
Australian witches.

3.3.3 A phenomenological consideration of experiential

participation and performativity in ritual

What the above analysis of the Cartesian dichotomy emphasises is that ritual has
the capacity to collapse binary understandings of the mind and body, which can be
analysed using a phenomenological approach. For example, performance is
frequently described in social science literature as a field of creation in which realities
are presented vividly enough to alter social relations, disturb discourse and bodily
dispositions (Turner 1987; Harkin 1994). Bauman’s (1986) conceptualisation of
performance involves individuals evoking an imaginative reality in order to bring
about an altered awareness of their situation. In this case, the focus shifts away from
an event to performativity itself. Performativity in ritual, for the purposes of this
research project, refers to a mode of consciousness in which acts are experienced
external to their intention. Performativity is an influential component of ritual,
particularly in terms of the bodily transformative potential for young Australian
women.

Drawing on previous anthropological analysis of religious ritual conducted by

Tambiah (1979) and Schieffelin (1996), Schechner (1988) argues that the basic point
of contestation in this field of research lies not between ritual and theatre, rather
between efficacy and entertainment. For example, Schechner draws heavily on
Turner’s (1987) work in this area and theorises that the efficacy of a ritual
performance should be decided based on its ability to bring about social change, as
well as actual transformations. Building on this connection between ritual and
performance, Schieffelin’s work (1985) explores the efficacy of performance
compared to the efficacy of symbols. His analysis of their efficacy found that

21
meaning is formulated in different contextual situations. This differentiation is based
on the idea that symbols create meaning in a cognitive space. However, through
performative rituals, individuals actively engage with the symbols in the interactional
creation of a performative reality. An understanding of theoretical conceptualisation
of performativity in ritual is required in order to examine the experiences and
perspectives of young Australians involved in the counter-cultural spiritual practices
of witchcraft.

The idea of embodied ritual performance expands on early anthropological notions of

ritual performance, in which the agency of the person performing the ritual is passive
in relation to the deterministic influence of societal structures and discourses. The
theoretical and methodological understandings of the performance of ritual genres
are consistently situated as a rhetorical means of ordering experience and directing
attention. In contrast, a re-conceptualisation of performance in ritual is posited by
Csordas (1994). Csordas extends on previous theoretical analyses of performance
and ritual. He puts forward the argument that in order for a sign to become engaged
in the world it must be able to be acted or performed. According to Csordas (1994)
when it becomes engaged, it passes into a domain of embodiment, and within this
domain, exists the efficacy of the performance of metaphor. Performative ritual,
considered as part of the lived, bodily experience of young Australian women, can
therefore be seen as an influential space within which there is the potential to
transform metaphors and symbols that affect perspectives about the self and the
body.

In addition, Csordas (1994) proposes that within ritual performance lies a significant
transformative importance and potential. This is apparent in Hume’s (1997)
ethnographic description of ritual performance, she argues that the sacred narratives
used in ritual are subject to processes of transformation. Her research suggested
that during the rituals she observed and participated in, the elements of play and
theatre were highlighted and present in most groups. The dual effect of these
elements, according to Hume (1997), creates an environment within which
participants give themselves permission to explore other cultures and mythologies
that they find captivating. In addition, individuals can become individually and
collectively caught up in the excitement of engaging in a highly emotionally charged

22
atmosphere. Experiential participation in ritual, considered in phenomenological
terms, has the potential to subjectively and objectively transform perceptual
understandings about the self. Subsequently, the pre-objective orienting of such
energetic, lived experiences in the world emphasises both the materiality and
immediacy of lived, bodily experience. Rituals have the potential to create liminal
spaces, within which the body orients itself, towards the world, as an object imbued
with religious and culturally contingent, subjective meaning.

3.3.4 Liminality and embodiment in ritual spaces

In order to examine the experiential and perceptual dimensions of the counter-

cultural spiritual practices of witchcraft, the concept of liminality requires
consideration and discussion. Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) paradigm of embodiment puts
forward the argument that lived bodily practices do not follow a simplistic procedure
of constitution. When assessing spiritual practices, a paradigm of embodiment allows
them to be studied as both creatively and intentionally formed. For this fluid, creative
process to take place, the space it is situated in must be taken into consideration.
Within the realm of liminality, a particular emphasis is put on individuals on their
social and structural ambiguity. In this case, Turner’s (1967) concepts of structural
invisibility and the realm of pure possibility, become useful when analysing actions
within ritual spaces. The experiential pre-objective in this state of ambiguity becomes
exposed to potentiality. This theoretical exploration of liminality only accounts for the
potential of an individual to be reintegrated into the social structure, and neglects to
take into account that liminality functions simultaneously as a threat to structure and
as a source of its continuity. Hence, within practices that assist individuals in having
liminal experiences, they are presented with the opportunity to reinforce the order of
social structure or discover points where they can develop counter-cultural practices.
The concept of liminality will be utilised by this research project to investigate the
nature and prevalence of the rituals and practices of witchcraft in Australia.

Further, Blacking (1977) uses proto-rituals as ethnographic grounds for examining

the body, because within this space, he argues, there is no language and no
symbols; all there is to draw upon is the experiential language of the body. In
addition, in these spaces the language of the body is ambiguous and simultaneously

23
determined. The body, subjectively and/or objectively, is conceptualised as the
immediate field where the pre-objective is located, as well as a locus of potentiality.

3.4 Conceptualising Perception and Embodiment

As explored above, this research project will utilise the concept of somatics to
explore consciously and unconsciously embodied reactions to rituals. Due to the
nature of somatics as outlined by Blackman (2008), the concept of embodiment is
useful for exploring shared, harmonic experiences that surpass the purely physical.
Therefore, this research proposed research will utilise the paradigm of embodiment
in order to examine perspectives and lived, bodily experiences, in light of the
complexities of objectivity and subjectivity.

Bringing together the ideas discussed above, this research project will employ the
work of Csordas (1990, 1994, 1997) and others in regard to these interactions. The
body, considered as the locus of lived, bodily experiences, is a complex site where
ideas and perspectives of the self are (re) produced, maintained and possibly
challenged. Hallowell follows the traditional anthropological line of thought that the
self is created in the sequential, developmental process of socialization. However,
Csordas (1990) is critical of this approach, arguing that it neglects to recognise the
constant reconstitutive processes of the self and its dynamic relationship with
discursive changes in society. For this reason, perception represents a critical
component of Hallowell’s (1955) definition of the self and self-awareness. According
to his definition, the self has the capacity to recognise itself as an object in a world of
objects. Further, in his work on the ‘problem of perception’ Hallowell anticipated an
anthropological re-evaluation of the distinction between subject and object. An
overview of theoretical conceptualisations of perceptions and the self is necessary,
particularly as the emphasis of this research proposal focuses on bodily experiences
and perspectives.

Merleau-Ponty (1962) situates embodiment within the problematic of perception. He

posits that perception ends in objects, that is to say, on the level of perception we
have no objects. He refers to objects as secondary products of reflective thinking
and that ‘we are simply in the world’ (Csordas 1990: 9). From Merleau-Ponty’s
(1962) assertion that perception ends in objects Csordas (1990) proposes an
anthropology of phenomenology that aims to capture the moment of transcendence

24
in which perception begins. The difficulty in this task lies in the indeterminate nature
of perception. It is within this indeterminacy that the potential for the witch to
transform from a symbol of evil to a beacon of resistance lies, and is achieved
through rituals of embodiment (Luhrman 1989; Hume 1997; Greenwood 2000).
Merleau-Ponty’s (1962) process of analysis aims to coincide with perception and
reverse the analytic process that begins with object. For this reason the concept of
the pre-objective is offered to cultural analysis for the study of the embodied process
of perception from beginning to end instead of starting at the end and following it
backwards to the beginning. This approach is useful to the research question this
research project addresses, because the primary focus is on the significance of
perception.

Csordas’ (1990) ethnographic study of a North American movement known as the

Catholic Charismatic Renewal contributes to current phenomenological
understandings of perception and embodiment. In the 1980s he began investigating
the healing practices of a modern religious movement by interviewing eighty-seven
healers in order to delineate their understandings of the healing experience. Csordas
(1990) critiques analysis of religious experiences that uses an objectivist mind-body
dichotomy. Analysing lived religious experiences cannot be easily explained by a
simplistic separation of subject and object. This particular dualist framework is visible
in other theoretical evaluations that separate the mind from the body. Merleau-
Ponty’s (1962) methodological paradigm begins with the real, lived experience within
which the object is present and alive. He posits that this should be the starting point
for analysing the experiential pre-objective of individuals. This approach resonates
and supports the research aims of this research. A pre-objective lived experience
implies that the locus of the experiential act of perception is the body. This approach
emphasises Csordas (1990) view that body is neither wholly subject or object,
instead functions as both of them concurrently. However, it needs to be considered
that the relationship between objectivity and subjectivity is continuously inflected by
the unconscious and the conscious.

Csordas (1990) emphasises in his research that a paradigm of embodiment has the
capacity to collapse the subject-object duality thus allowing for spontaneous
experiential responses. This is useful when examining notions of embodiment in
ritual settings, by exploring perspectives and experiences of witchcraft. In his

25
research Csordas discovered that experiential responses relied on his participants
having immediate access to bodily knowledge inculcated as culturally shared
dispositions. He argues that through the experiential combination of the perceptions
and practices, the body acts as subject as well as object, hence, no lived experience
can be separated from bodily experience. This insight into lived bodily, experiences
is pertinent to this research, because of the emphases placed on experience and
perspective.

Correspondingly, Merleau-Ponty (1962) identifies the body as a setting in relation to

the world, and explains consciousness as the body projecting itself subjectively and
objectively into the world. Similarly, Bourdieu collapses mind-body dualism by
offering a paradigm in which the socially informed body generates and unifies
practices with consciousness and its objective potentialities. The concept of
embodiment becomes particularly useful when exploring the experiences and
perspectives of a religious group, especially considering the interplay between
embodiment, somatically felt reactions and ritual performance. Together Bourdieu
and Merleau-Ponty engage in a paradigm of embodiment that asks where the
preobjective begins, namely, in the body that then situates the socially informed body
in the world. Their contribution to experiential and perceptual analysis begins with
the body in the world by looking at subjective and objective experience as well as
subjective and objective perception. This allows them to reach an understanding of
the culturally constructed and shared, as well as continuously socially informed body
in the world.

3.4.1 The body in the world: understanding how the body as

subject perceives the world as well as itself

This research proposal will therefore employ a phenomenological approach to

perspectives, so as to gain a deeper understanding of the lived, bodily experience of
young Australians involved in the counter-cultural spiritual practices of witchcraft. In
order to recognise Bourdieu’s (1977) contribution to understanding the body in the
world and embodiment, an overview of his concept of habitus is required. While
there is a broad applied understanding of habitus as described in the work of
Bourdieu below this research project employs also reflects on the earlier work of
Mauss (1938) who described habitus as a more physical manifestation of

26
collectivised practices, deportments and preferences. This concept was first
introduced by Mauss in his influential essay on body techniques, in which he refers
to habitus as the ‘total of culturally patterned uses of the body in a society’ (see
Csordas 1990: 11). In his research, Csordas (1990) observed habitus manifesting
through ritual behaviour in embodied imagery of divine Catholic icons such as Jesus
and the Virgin Mary. Similarly this research project will consider habitus in light of
behaviour during witchcraft ritual and embodied imagery of the witch.

Habitus is essentially an embodied phenomenon that signifies the bodily system of

dispositions we bring to a field (Bourdieu 1977). The reason this concept is integral
to this research project is that Australia represents a variety of religious
organisations with complex semiotic structures and denominational differences. In
order to draw out and consider how these complexities affect and play into
understandings of the witch, the concept of habitus is useful. For instance, Csordas’
work on embodiment encompasses an understanding that the habitus reflects
shared overlapping cultural context(s). Within this understanding, the body as
subject perceives acts as culturally prescribed. In the cultural act of perception the
world of objects is conditioned. Conversely, the world of objects is also embedded in
a pre-objective experiential engagement with the objectively and subjectively
experientially perceived body.

3.4.2 How embodiment allows young practitioners to experience

‘being in the world’

In order to understand the significance of experience and perspective, the concept of

bodily synthesis represents the potential for new objectifications. Csordas’ (1990)
uncovered how a combination of imagination, emotions and a sense of movement,
objectify and constitute experiences of embodied healing. He emphasises that within
experientially based embodied healing, the locus of the sacred is the body, and that
the body is the existential ground of culture. On an individual level, the pre-objective
component of this religious activity involves spontaneous engagement and cultural
creativity (Csordas 1990: 26). Csordas’ approach to studying religious perspectives
and experiences using the concept of embodiment is pertinent to this research
project. In his work, Csordas outlines the significant relationship spontaneity shares
with the sacred and authenticity. He discerned from his participants that

27
spontaneous religious experiences were considered to be strong indications of
authenticity. For example, according to Csordas, the embodied experience of
glossolalia (a term that often refers to Protestant or Pentecostal Christians speaking
in tongues) stems from the absence of language which allows the sacred to become
embedded. Glossolalia lacks coherent semantic content and according to Csordas
(1990: 26) ‘ruptures the world of human meaning’. Charismatic Catholics engaging in
acts of glossolalia thereby challenge the dominant discourse and in doing so create
the potential for counter-cultural change. By taking Csordas approach into
consideration this research project will examine the experiences and perspectives of
young Australians involved in these counter-cultural spiritual of witchcraft practices.

The above analysis emphasises the potential embodiment holds in regard to how to
study witches and their pre-objective bodily experiences. What also needs to be
considered is the potential for a paradigm of embodiment that can utilised for the
study of the relationship(s) and interconnectivities of culture and the self (Csordas
1990). For the purposes of this research, this means understanding where witchcraft
fits into the lives of individuals, as well as how witchcraft fits into broader Australian
picture. Csordas argues that if embodiment is to attain the status of a more complete
working paradigm, it needs to enable the interpretation of lived bodily practices to
reflect an embodied approach. Embodiment, considered in this paradigmatic context,
has the potential to provide the methodological grounds for an experiential or
empirical identification of instances of this otherness, and therefore for a ‘study of the
sacred as a modality of human experience’ (Csordas 1990: 34). A pragmatic
application of embodiment as a working paradigm needs to be able to increase
current theoretical understandings of how witchcraft beliefs and practices are related
amongst practitioners themselves. The paradigm of embodiment gives this research
project the opportunity to increase these understandings and their relationship to the
experiences and perspectives of young Australian women.

During the rituals described in the ethnographic studies by (Luhrman 1989; Hume
1997; Greenwood 2000) there is little to no time for reflection, thus the need for a
concept of a pre-reflective or preobjective bodily experience. Preobjective bodily
experience encompasses the experiential act of perception, in which embodied
processes of self-objectification occur (Csordas 1990). To clarify what Csordas
means in regard to this, self-objectification does not refer to the process of taking on

28
an observer’s (often negative) perspective of one’s body. This particular theory of
objectification is usually used in order to explain how American women internalize
the ideas that their bodies serve as sexual objects (Calogero et al 2011). However,
when Csordas uses the phrase ’self-objectification’ he is challenging the
presumption that phenomena of perception are located within the mind or subjective,
and that the phenomena of practice are behaviour based or objective.
Objectification, for the purposes of this research, is useful for exploring how young
women reconstitute understandings of their identity, gender and the body. In
addition, Csordas approaches phenomena within a paradigm that asks how
individuals create and participate in cultural objectifications and objectifications of the
self. Utilising a theoretical paradigm of embodiment allows this proposed research to
examine the experiences and perspectives of young Australian women practicing
witchcraft in a way that avoids separating the mind and the body

3.5 A phenomenological framework for considering the conscious

and unconscious modes of embodiment and ritual making

This research project aims to contribute to the body of literature an illustration of

contemporary understandings of the experiences and perspectives of young
Australians involved in the counter-cultural spiritual practices of witchcraft. This
research proposal utilises phenomenology in order to assess the semiotic
significance of performatively grounding and ascribing the witch in lived bodily
experiences. In particular this research project will focus on the concept of
embodiment as culturally dependent - addressing and situating the relationship
between the person and the world - as oriented in the body, as well as with the body,
as both subject and object.

Phenomenology works on the epistemological grounds that concerns how things

appear to our consciousness when we engage with them. This is particularly useful
for this research proposals work on perspective. As outlined above, lived
experiences in the body cannot be understood by simply separating subject and
object. For this reason phenomenology is used by anthropologists such as Csordas
(1997), because of this methodological approach’s propensity to critique rational
dualities in anthropology, particularly concerning the mind-body divide. For example,
Cargonja (2013) draws on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach to the body,

29
and his assertion that perceiving bodies are juxtaposed in the world, and perception
is located in the body as a thing of the world in and of itself. This phenomenological
approach to the body is included in this literature review because it addresses and
situates the relationship between the person and the world - as oriented in the body,
as well as with the body, as both subject and object.

The conscious and unconscious ways women embody the witch, and integrate this
embodied image into ritual making will be a key focus of this research project. For
this reason, Farnell’s conceptualisation of semiosis as performatively grounded in
the mindful body will be utilised. As outlined in the section above, traditional semiotic
analysis tends to focus predominately on meaning making through representation.
However, a discursive approach to ethnographic analysis reduces the experiential to
representation. This reduction leaves the ethnographic lens indifferent to non-
representational features of the human experience. In contrast, Csordas (1999)
argues that representation, considered through a discursive model does, transcends
the exclusivity of this approach by considering the human experience in terms of a
priori knowledge, non-verbal and unconscious communication and other bodily ways
of knowing. Therefore for this project to analyse lived bodily experiences under a
methodological framework such as phenomenology an engagement with the concept
of embodiment becomes necessary.

Within phenomenology, a focus on bodiliness is actively encouraged, one that goes

beyond the body as a singular object. Instead it encourages emphasis on the body
and its relationship with other bodies, processes of objectification, de-objectification
and constructing subjectivity and intersubjective relations. For the purposes of this
research proposal, this provides a theoretical approach to the individuals mindful
body the relationship it has with other witches as well as witchcraft itself. Cargonja’s
(2013) review of phenomenology articulates how Merleau-Ponty’s work has had
significant influence on Csordas’s work (1990, 1993, 1997 and 1999) and his
conceptualisation of embodiment. Within Merleau-Ponty’s (1968) works, meaning
and being are interconnected on the level of experience, which is not necessarily
objectified. Understanding that meaning and being are interconnected on the level of
experience holds significance for this research, specifically when considering how it
will explore the experiences and perspectives of witchcraft practitioners. Thus, for
Merleau-Ponty, meaning and being are so completely entwined through the medium

30
of the body that one cannot talk about the experiential components of life without
talking about the pre-objective.

As described previously, Csordas’ (1990) approach to perception combines

Bourdieu’s indeterminacy of practice with Merleau-Ponty’s existential indeterminacy
of perception. This theoretical insight into the nature of perception is critical for this
research. This is because indeterminacy, Csordas argues, became a significant
theoretical turning point, because it allowed for a synthesis between the semiotic and
the phenomenological. By drawing together Merleau-Ponty’s idea of being-in-the-
world and Bourdieu’s concept of habitus Csordas laid the foundation for what he
termed cultural phenomenology. Consequently, cultural phenomenology strives to
encompass discourse and phenomenology, as well as existential and
representational meanings, by taking a non-dualistic methodological approach when
addressing cultural phenomena. A pragmatic application of cultural phenomenology
for this research needs to be able to increase current theoretical understandings of
how witchcraft beliefs and practices are related amongst themselves. An important
point of analysis in cultural phenomenology addresses the premeditative approach
that consciousness takes towards the world through the medium of the body.

Cargonja (2013) argues that Csordas’ attempt to bring together Bourdieu’s logical
indeterminacy of practice and Merleau-Ponty’s existential indeterminacy of
perception is born out of the idea that the primary mode of being-in-the-world is
practical and it does not simply hold together consciousness and its object. For this
reason Cargonja sites Merleau-Ponty’s argument for intentionality and his
understanding of intentionality as an irreducible ontological relation with the world.
Put simply, intentionality brings together action and the how the body is situated and
situates itself in the world. The image of the witch, understood as grounded in
phenomenal field of the body can be related to Farnell’s conceptualisation of
semiosis as performatively grounded will be utilised. Meaning-making understood
through Farnell’s work, can also be related to Cargonja’s conceptualisation of
meaning as grounded in intentionality. He argues that meaning is not solely derived
from cognition it comes primarily from bodily movements, these movements
Cargonja points out do not have to be cognized to have meaning. This is consistent
with Farnell’s conceptualisation of meaning making through lived bodily experience.
The phenomenal field of the body therefore provides a framework for understanding

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experiences and perspectives of witchcraft practitioners in ritual settings, with
particular reference to their bodily movements.

The approach outlined above, of approaching lived experiences with the

understanding that meaning is created and performatively grounded in the mindful
body through both cognition and bodily movements, lends itself to this research
project. For instance, in her ethnographic research Hume (1997: 11) utilises a
phenomenological approach. She argues that the primary aim of this approach
moves beyond ‘the constraints of structural functional analysis and semiotic symbolic
anthropology which treats accounts as texts to be analysed in terms of their
meaning’. In this way phenomenology aims for an objective descriptive analysis and
a systematic assessment of the essence of a religious belief system. Using this
approach allows for a potentially deeper understanding of participants conception of
truth and an understanding of what is meaningful to them, while simultaneously not
questioning the authenticity of the belief system or the validity of their perception of
reality. The phenomenologist, according to Hume, suspends their own disbelief
without accepting the full totality of the participants’ worldview as their own. Instead,
the researcher must bracket or suspend judgement in order to gain insights into their
participants’ experiences. In order to conduct research in this manner, Hume
encourages researchers to pursue an eidetic vision by suspending their personal
judgements, in order to remain open to what constitutes reality for their participants.
Finally, she argues that a phenomenological approach acknowledges that even
though some religious experiences cannot be quantitatively documented or
recorded, that does not mean that the possibility of their existence should be
ignored.

3.6 Counter-cultural religious and spiritual practices: a review of the

semiotics

This section will provide an overview of the current studies on counter-cultural

groups that combine elements of feminism and spiritualty. The term ‘counterculture’
typically describes social movements or groups of people who engage in a criticism
or rejection of currently powerful institutions, choosing to enact behaviours that are
‘counter’ to more publicly accepted practices (Roszak 1969). This research proposal
utilises the phrase ‘counter-culture’ to emphasise and distinguish how the witch is

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positioned in relation to the dominant public discourse of Christianity. Christianity
serves as the main focus to which alternative religious groups become a
counterpoint. In order to explore the world of the participants, a review of current
semiotic approaches to embodied rituals is necessary.

Traditionally, semiotics is associated with textual analysis and the role of signs in the
construction of reality. Farnell’s (2012) conceptualisation of semiotics illuminates
concurrences between Foucauldian discourse and Csordas’ theory of embodiment,
and subsequently integrates them. Based on the current research available on
witches, the embodied rituals of counterculture conducted by witches imply a
process of semiotic improvisation. The process of embodying the witch involves
participants performatively grounding and ascribing their interpretation of the witch
within the mindful body. Farnell (2012) summarises Csordas’ position on semiotics
and phenomenology, highlighting that semiotics provides textuality, and can increase
understandings of representation, whereas phenomenology gives us embodiment in
order to understand being-in-the world. This interpretation captures the essence of
what this research project aims to explore.

3.6.1 A semiotic approach to studying embodied practices and

processes

By analysing practitioner accounts, this research project will present authentic

accounts of young witches and provide a contribution to anthropological
understandings around embodiment and perception, ritual and counter-culture.
Further, the concept of discourse is used in Farnell’s work to describe meaning
making processes in terms of musical discourses and visual discourses as well as
tactile, gustatory and kinetic discourses rather than ‘sign systems.’ By reconfiguring
the semiotic in this way, Farnell re-focuses analytic attention away from structure
and system and towards embodied practices and processes. This approach
considers the semiotic components of witchcraft practices and rituals as
performatively grounded in the experiential, lived body.

Ruether (1980) argues that counter-cultural feminists reject the notion that any
theological tradition, critical or not, has any relevance for women. Emphases have
since shifted to focus on the spiritual and embodied aspects of behaviour and ritual
of feminist, religious counter-cultural movements. There is clear evidence of this shift

33
in focus in Rountree’s (2004) ethnographic study of feminist witches in New Zealand.
She argues that the women she interviewed deliberately engage with the witch on an
embodied, spiritual level and use the witch as form of illegitimate femininity to disturb
the dominant gender and cultural order.

Harkin (1994) contributes to the study of counter culture by examining the

phenomenological field of the body and its provision of immediate and powerful
evidence for the contest of culture. In contrast, Harper (2010) examines how
counter-cultural witchcraft practices utilise the phenomenological field of the body in
order to resist against patriarchal expectations of women. In particular, how the
witches she interviewed, embody bisexuality in order to collapse mainstream sexual
and gender boundaries, and expectations of heteronormativity (Harper, 2010).

3.6.2 The semiotic significance of utilising the witch for political

action

Ruether (1980) study examines the 1967 WITCH (Women’s International Terrorist
Conspiracy from Hell), an American political group who utilised the semiotic impact
of the witch as a platform for political action. This specific form of counter-cultural,
feminist movements is concentrated in her work, in particular, their deliberate
political choice to utilise the semiotic potential of the witch. Following on Ruether’s
work Harper (2010) makes an important distinction by pointing out that WITCH group
was secular, and not a Neo-Pagan or spiritual group. They used the image of the
witch represent dangerous female power. Both Ruether and Harper argue that
dominant monotheistic traditions exist in order to ‘sanctify patriarchy’. Therefore, they
assert that women who concern themselves with discovering a feminist spirituality
cannot do so without withdrawing from fundamentally patriarchal religions.

The political group WITCH described above drew the American public’s attention to
the Church's role European witch-craze and the number of women who died during
this time. It also initiated conversations about figures such as the witch and
possibility of pre-Christian matriarchal societies. During the 1970’s and 1980’s when
these movements were first mobilising, the witch became an appealing figure for
counter-cultural feminists. The significance of the witch to counter-cultural political
and religious movements, according to Roundtree (2004), lies in semiotic value. As a
traditionally illegitimate model of normal womanhood, the witch represents a source

34
of female power external to male control – hence the appeal for spiritually inclined
counter-cultural feminists. By constructing an alternative female-centred religion
these women, Rountree (2004) argues, are essentially reconceptualising what it
means to be feminine. Rountree and Ruether’s work also provides evidence for the
counter-cultural belief that the dominant worldview based on dualism needs to be
challenged in order to end gender inequality.

The phenomenological field of the body reveals contradictions within the cultural
order, specifically between the production and reproduction social control and forms
of creative anarchy. For instance, the political group WITCH focused on the witch as
their representation of dangerous femininity created the possibility for cultural
change. This possibility was created by foregrounding normally implicit categories of
gender and the essential contradictions they entail. Using the example of WITCH
Ruether (1980) demonstrates the potential of engaging in counter-cultural witchcraft
practices without participating in spiritual practices. Witchcraft, understood as cultural
alterity and grounded in phenomenal field of the body can be analysed through
Farnell’s conceptualisation of semiosis as performatively grounded in the mindful
body. Re-focusing analytic attention away from surface representation and structure
and towards embodied practices and processes allows for a phenomenological
rather than a functionalist analysis.

Theaology represents counter-cultural feminist efforts to support and provide new

embodied knowledges that assist the expression of female-centred spiritual beliefs
and identities. The concept theaology is introduced by Raphael (1999) as a
discourse that does no thealogian insists on the exclusive truth of her own
perspective(s). This approach is relevant to this research project due to thealogies,
emphasis on experience rather than belief. Further, theaology is described as
process of religious self-discovery and expression that is situated in the body and in
nature (Raphael, 1999). As mentioned previously, Harper (2010) conducted an
ethnography on women who identify themselves as bisexual witches. She found that
feminist and woman-centred thealogies give women space and permission to
express non-heterosexual sexualities. In addition, participants found that they felt
free to ‘seek wholeness to tear down the boundary between body and mind/spirit
instilled by society, and celebrate their embodied woman-self’. Harper draws a

35
correlation between the feminist act of claiming a female godhead and purposefully
embodying bisexuality as a form of counter-cultural feminist spirituality.

The emphasis on sexuality being utilised as a medium of counter-cultural spiritualty

presents a specific lived experience of witchcraft – one that integrates an
embodiment of bisexuality as means of countering patriarchal expectations of
women. Similarly, Harkins (1994) initially identifies the body as the site of
perspectives and experiences, then goes onto expand on the idea of the self as
intentionally embodying counter-cultural intentions and ideologies. In this case, the
interpretation of counter-cultural femininity included performatively grounding and
ascribing bisexuality within the mindful body. Further, this research project will
incorporate an understanding of the body as the principal focus of the culturally
constituted lived experience. Harkin’s (1994) approach to the phenomenological field
of the body is especially pertinent to this research and how it will examine
experience. He argues that the phenomenal field of the body provides immediate
and powerful evidence for the contest of culture. In particular, he states that
domination, resistance, and transformation are acted out through bodily practices,
beliefs, representations, and ways of being. Further, he explains that on an individual
level bodies mediate between the self and the other, on a cultural level, it is the
expressive and ‘empowered body that mediates cultural alterity’ (Harkin 1994). This
contribution to understanding the relationship between cultural alterity and the
phenomenal field of the body provides a framework for studying the experiences and
perspectives of young women practicing witchcraft.

3.7 Conclusion

In the review of literature presented above, I have aimed to consider a range of

theoretical understandings in relation to the body, perception and ritual. I have also
attempted to illustrate a range of the contemporary understandings of the
experiences and perspectives of young Australians involved in the counter-cultural
spiritual practices of witchcraft. This literature review has focused on the systemic
exclusion of women from traditional religious spaces and power, as well efforts they
have made to seek out or create their own religious sacred spaces (Clement 2001).
The review also outlines the ethnographic accounts of witchcraft practices,
particularly those that examine how the female body orients and is oriented in ritual

36
(Hume 1997). Experiential participation in ritual, considered through a
phenomenological framework, has the potential to subjectively and objectively
transform perceptual understandings about the self. This process was evident in
ethnographic work by Luhrman (1989), Hume (1997) and Clement (2001).

Currently missing from the studies of witchcraft experiences and rituals is an

examination of the relationship between witchcraft and the body. The female body in
particular, requires a consideration as the locus of lived, bodily experiences, and a
complex site where ideas and perspectives of the self are (re) produced, maintained
and possibly challenged. This research project will also provide current, developed
conceptualisations of counter cultural embodiment, rituals and processes of semiotic
improvisation. Accordingly, by emphasising its discussion on the ritual processes of
embodying the witch through the mindful body, the above review of literature
supports the primary aim of this research project. This research proposal has
attempted to detail the most appropriate theoretical approaches in order to conduct a
thorough exploration of participant’s experiences and perspectives. Particular
emphasis has been placed on ethnographic studies that situate the body as the
locus of somatically felt reactions and the existential ground of culture. Extending on
theoretical conceptualisations of the relationship between the pre-objective and
experience, the proposed research suggests a re-conceptualisation of counter-
cultural spiritual practices as an experiential process understood through a non-
dualistic paradigm of embodiment. By combining the theoretical applications to this
topic and securing the involvement of young women themselves, this project will be
well positioned to unveil the experiential dimensions of counter-cultural spiritual
practices of witchcraft for young Australian women.

4. Methodology

4.1 Introduction

This research will address and situate the relationship between the person and the
world as oriented in the body, with the body, as both subject and object. In order to
do so, this research project draws on the theoretical and methodological paradigm of
embodiment to argue that bodily processes of perception and experience that

37
constitute understandings of the world are socially and culturally dependent.
Currently, there exist studies that conceptualise of witches as active agents, shaping
their own religious meaning (Luhrman 1989; Hume 1997; Rountree 1997). Yet much
of the available research generalises or overlooks the experiences of individual
adherents by homogenising their experiences without considering how factors such
as distinct national, cultural, social and economic backgrounds influence their
experiences. By utilising a theoretical paradigm of embodiment and the pre-objective
this research proposal will avoid emphasising only some aspects of participant’s
experiences. This approach will allow for a thorough exploration of the significant
aspects that may be invisible or transcendent, those that are not measurable but
implicit within the lived experiences of participants.

4.2 Recruitment

Between thirty-five to fifty participants will be recruited to participate in the research

project. The criteria for inclusion in the proposed research project are the following:

 Participants living in Australia; this includes participants 16-17 years of age,

as well as participants 18-25 years of age. In addition, event organisers will be
interviewed.
 Currently practicing a form of witchcraft and/or identify as a witch
 Aged 16-17 years of age, as well as participants 18-25 years old.
 Female (predominately)

Criteria for selecting and recruiting interview participants have been established to
align with the specific demographics of youth and gender being explored in the
study. Participants will have had some involvement in a form of alternative counter-
cultural spiritual practices. They must be at least 16 years of age, or 18 years of age
(the latter will receive different PISs in comparison to those 16-17 years of age who
will be required to provide parental/guardian consent as well). Initial contact will be
made with practitioners who identify themselves as witches through their established
websites or social media sites such as Facebook. If they express interest in
participating, as per the guidelines in research methods mentioned below, they will
be invited to approach the researcher via her university email address. After
introducing the nature of this topic and the role and institutional affiliations of the
student researcher, participants will be sent the Participant Information Statement

38
and Consent forms several weeks ahead of the potential interview date which allows
time for them to ask questions via email prior to the interview. If participants agree to
partake they will be asked to confirm an approximate interview time and a suitable
venue will be discussed via email or on the phone.

When seeking to recruit young people to research, how they communicate with other
young people needs to be considered. Indications from research conducted using
social media as a recruitment tool, suggests that young people prefer to remain
anonymous with regards to their religious and spiritual activities and beliefs (Berger
and Ezzy 2004; James 2014). In today’s technologically advanced society and with
the age group sought for this research, utilising social networking is a viable option.
In 2004, Facebook was founded with the aim of making the world more open and
connected for people (Facebook 2013). With almost 700 million active daily users on
average and over 80% of users residing outside of the USA and Canada (Facebook
2013) it’s no surprise that Facebook has become a new and innovative medium for
accessing and recruiting research participants (James 2014). With this in mind
Facebook will be utilised in this research project as a recruitment tool.

The inclusion criteria above details that the interviewer will be interviewing women.
Bell (1993) and Bellamy (2007) argue that assuming women are best suited for
interviewing women due to shared gender is incorrect and an oversimplification of
what is actually a complicated issue. Feminists such as Oakley (1982) argue that the
power imbalance between women respondents and women researchers is in favour
of the latter. Cotterill (1992) counters this argument, stating that interviews are ‘fluid
encounters where balances shift between and during different interview situations,
and there are times when researchers as well as the researched are vulnerable’. The
primary methodological approach of this project, ethnography, has been specifically
chosen for this research in order to reduce the aforementioned risks and allow the
researcher to find a balanced approach to talking to participants.

An ethical concern in research involving members of discreet religious groups is the

potential for identification. Therefore an important consideration for this research
project involves the issue of informed consent. Qualitative research should be
conducted only with participants' freely volunteered informed consent. This implies
that the researcher has the responsibility to clearly and precisely explain what the

39
research is about and how it will be used. This also means that the participants have
the right to not participate, and to know exactly how their confidentiality will be
maintained (Corti et al 2000).The identities of participants are strictly protected and
obscured in the data to ensure that any potential issues that may arise from
identification are avoided. The potential identification for the participants in the
proposed research will be avoided through the use of pseudonyms and de-
identifying information.

4.3 Research Design

4.3.1 Participant Observation

This proposal uses a research approach previously applied by Csordas (1997), one
that emphasises the primacy the body as both subject and object in which lived
experiences are oriented. Hence, the anthropological research of this project will be
informed by the contribution to the study of ethnography put forward by Malinowski
(1922). This contribution emphasises long-term immersion in the field of study
utilising a methodology of participant observation. Participant observation can be
described simply, as a method used by researchers wherein the researcher takes
part in the day to day interactions, activities and rituals of a group of people as a way
of understanding the overt and implicit aspects of their religious practice and lives.
Further, the observation component of this method serves as the source of questions
for subsequent face to face interviews. Accordingly, the proposed research will
involve immersion in the field of witchcraft rituals and practices. The methodological
approach of participant observation will enable the researcher to observe the lived
bodily practices of women practicing witchcraft. It will also provide opportunities for
the researcher to learn the meanings and understandings attached to those
particular practices and perspectives constitutive of everyday life through
participation. Participant observation is a research method that enables the
researcher to not only observe the practices of a research population that constitute
explicit cultural knowledge, but through participation in those practices enables the
researcher to potentially learn the tacit cultural knowledge that informs observable
praxis (Spradley 1980).

Bernard (2014) argues that participant observation is the most successful way for
researchers to observe and access tacit aspects of culture as praxis. It is also useful

40
for articulating aspects of cultural or religious practices, ones that lay outside
immediate perception or consciousness. Due to the way embodied tacit knowledge
is transmitted, it is through participation in the setting that allows researchers to gain
insight into aspects of cultural and religious knowledge that is for the most part.
Through participant observation, such implicit and explicit understandings can be
accessed, and through subsequent thought and reflexive reflection these
phenomena can be analysed. For this reason field notes will be utilised, and kept
throughout the data gathering process by the researcher. This practice refers to
notes kept by anthropologists during their fieldwork about their observations. These
notes come in approximately three forms - rough notes, transcribed texts, and
polished (often typed) descriptive notes.

Anthropologist Favert-Saada (1981) ethnography of witchcraft beliefs in a rural area

in western France is cited in Hume’s (1997) work. She outlines Favert-Saada’s belief
that one cannot investigate witchcraft without agreeing to take part in the situations
where it occurs. Thus, studying religious experiences requires the researcher to
immerse themselves and participate in religious rituals that may induce some
religious experiences, ones that are beyond explanation. Taking this into
consideration, interpretive drift is a useful concept to incorporate into this research
projects methodology (Hume 1997). Interpretive drift occurs when experiences lead
to major shifts in a researcher’s basic perception which leads to an analysis of
experiences based on these changes in perception (Hume 1997).

Expanding on this, a phenomenological approach becomes the most appropriate, as

it has the ability to move past a structural functional analysis or even a semiotic
symbolic approach. A phenomenological methodology aims to assess what is
meaningful to the participant without raising questions of its validity or status in
reality. In order to achieve this, the researcher needs to suspend their disbelief whilst
simultaneously not completely accepting the participants’ worldview as their own.
Therefore one must ‘bracket’ or suspend judgement in order to gain insight into the
experiences and perspectives of participants (Cargonja 2013). Cargonja (2013)
explains the bracketing, as a process based on experiences of being-in-the-field and
the “betweenness” of their experience. Betweenness referring to the experience of
existing in a liminal space while attempting to participate and observe, live and
understand how other people make sense of their own experiences. For example,

41
from her study Magliocco (2004) uncovered that the experiential and perceptual
power of transformation is especially visible during initiation rituals. After participating
in the experience of a Witch camp herself, she described how participants are
isolated for a week at a campground and participate in daily magical exercises and
rituals that culminate in a large group ritual on one of the final nights.

Uldam and McCurdy (2013) consider the role of participant observation in the
ethnographic research of social movements, recognising that a researcher is rarely
solely a participant or an observer, when entering movement camps they
conceptualise the role of the participant-as-observer which describes the outsider
who progressively becomes familiar with their research subjects. The reason Uldam
and McCurdy’s (2013) study is relevant to this research project is because they often
face concerns gaining physical and emotional access to the movement and its
members. For example, it may prove challenging for an outsider researcher to gain
access to networks and to get members to share their stories and perspectives
(Fantasia 1988). Especially in studies of social or religious movements, the
researchers’ affinities and sympathies with the research subjects play a central part
in fostering the trust that is required to gain access to settings (Doherty et al 2007;
Plows 1998). Therefore, because this project aims to examine the experiences and
perspectives of young female Australians practicing witchcraft, the researcher will
need to exercise caution and deliberation when attempting to access a group of
participants who may be wary about allowing outsiders into their religious and
personal spaces.

4.3.2 Semi-Structured Interviews

As well as participant observation, this research project will use a semi-structured

interview structure based roughly around the dynamics of conversation. The semi-
structured interview will allow participants to control particular aspects of the
interview such as place and time. In doing so, interviewees will be able to maintain a
level of influence and jurisdiction before and during the interview. To achieve the
conversation style environment, a reflexive and informative interview setting needs to
be promoted. According to the interview approach put forward by Koven (2014), this
setting can be created by encouraging participants to ask questions during the
interview, doing so enables the constituting of interrelationally informed knowledge.

42
Conducting the interviews in this manner encourages a level of reciprocal listening
and dialogue, so they will come to reflect casual conversations.

In order to keep the interview environment semi-structured, a flexible interview

schedule will guide the first set of interviews. This guide will provide potential topics
to cover, however during the interview itself the interviewer will not actually produce
this guide to read reminders from. This would be conducive to a formal environment,
and undermine attempts to promote any level of reflexivity from the interview
participants. The researcher will commit the prompts and topics to memory so there
will be no need for a physical interview schedule. Thus any topics will be flexible
enough to allow for additional conversation paths and topic areas. Subsequent
interviews will follow a similar interview schedule in order to reveal the continuity or
discontinuity of perspectives and understandings, compared to trying to gather new
data on new topics of conversation. This research project aims to gather rich sources
of comparative data by using the methodological combination of participant
observation and semi-structured interviews in order to analyse the lived experiences
of experiences and perspectives of young Australian women practicing witchcraft.

This participant observation component of this research project will cover a period of
up to twelve months in the field. The aim of this research project is to illustrate the
construction of embodied cultural and religious knowledge within the lived
experiences and perspectives of young Australians involved in the counter-cultural
spiritual practices of witchcraft. In addition, I aim to conduct up to two semi-
structured interviews with each participant. The decision to include an initial interview
and a follow up interview rests on two aims: first of all, the initial interview will be
used to familiarise the interviewee and the researcher; the second interview will
provide a space within which the participants can explicitly reflect on the previous
interview and elucidate if they have had any further thoughts on their experiences
and perspectives of witchcraft. Including semi-structured interviews in the research
design for the proposed research project is not a simple methodological tool for
obtaining information from interview participants. This research approach
encourages reflexivity and involves more than simply inserting the ethnographer’s
biography into the equation. Rather, it will involve the researcher recognising their
responsibility to reformulate their epistemological practices. This method is thus

43
critical of all practices that dichotomise roles of the ‘intellectual ethnographer’ and
passive informants who are complicit objects of knowledge (Bauista 2014: 505).

The Newcastle University Human Ethics Committee has granted this project
conditional approval for both the collection of data in semi-structured interviews and
participant observation as of November 2014. The reference number for this
approval is noted as H-2014-0375. Responses to the Newcastle University Human
Ethics Committee conditional approval letter have been completed and we currently
await their response. Once the interviews have been conducted, interpretive themes
will be established and transcripts coded accordingly. Data will be analysed through
thematic prevalence and analysis will concentrate on personal narratives and
linkages between experiences of participants in order to highlight the experiences
and perspectives of young Australian women involved in witchcraft. Travel and
accommodation funding will be sought for the participant observation component in
and is explained further in the accompanying budget outlined in the section below.
The research project has been deemed as low risk by the Human Ethics Committee,
all participants will be provided with a pseudonym and have the option to revoke their
involvement at any time.

4.4 Situating the Field: Ethnographic Research

Ethnographic research encapsulates a process of immersion in a particular social

setting for an extended period of time. During this research process, observations of
behaviour, rituals, and conversations are combined with a concurrent process of
participation. Within this process of participation the researcher experiences the
culture of a particular group and develops an understanding of the observed features
of daily practice within the cultural context (Bryman 2008: 402). For this proposed
research project, access to the social settings is dependent on the recruitment of
participants. The aim of the proposed research is to study the experiences and
perspectives of young women practicing witchcraft in Australia. Embedded within the
qualitative approach of ethnography is the need to assimilate without ‘going native’,
to build collaborative networks that can simultaneously respond to an ethos of social
engagement’ (Hedda 2013). Anthropologists have the capacity to blend in, to locate
issues and focus in a direction to get sharp vision and depth perceptions. This
approach allows those who use ethnography to work within different cultural contexts

44
and various environments and to engage with multiple ontologies and intellectual
discourses (Hedda 2013).

Ethnographic research methods emphasise the integration of etic observations of

culture with emic participation in culture in order to provide a detailed account of how
people in particular social settings constitute and experience the world. In this
research project, access to the social setting of study is dependent on the
recruitment of participants. Prior to entering the field, the methodology of
ethnography cannot be described as a distinct process of data collection guided
through a set of distinct stages and processes, but encapsulates a reflexive process
of interpreting meaning (Geertz 1973). As Geertz (1973: 5) argues, an ethnographic
method of research involves describing an intellectual intention to achieve ‘thick
description’. Thick description derives from long term immersion in a field selected
through a specific cultural domain in which the behaviours and practices of people
are not only observed, but interpreted as well. Additionally, ethnography that aims to
provide ‘thick description’ does not interpret meaning in a vacuum; that is, the
observations and interpretations of a culture that determine the ethnographic
process are constituted through the anthropologist’s epistemology and
understandings of the world (Geertz 1973: 9).

Ethnography is a methodology shaped in the specificity of the field, circumstance,

time period, and experiences of the anthropologist; and cannot be guided by or
replicated through a rigid set of stages, steps, or analytical frames. There are
ethnographic techniques that assist in the establishment of ‘thick description’, such
as participation in daily activities, establishing rapport, sharing conversations,
selecting informants, and keeping a diary (Geertz 1973:6). However, these
processes all contribute to the aim of an ethnographic methodology that is to not
simply participate and to observe, but to interpret and critically examine meanings
and understandings as well. The methodological techniques of ethnography are
embodied in the taking and ordering of field notes, which provide the methodological
descriptions of the process of ethnography that is unique to each circumstance, each
designated field, and each anthropologist (Sanjek 1990); and which can only be
determined through the process of ethnography itself, not determined prior to its
undertaking.

45
More recent anthropological literature has questioned notions of the bounded field,
and posits the argument that locality and place are fluid and constitute in lived
experiences (Appadurai 1991:191). For instance, Gupta and Ferguson (1997:5)
argue that notions of the field are not clearly defined but are perceived and
constructed by anthropologists to determine particular aims. Gupta and Ferguson
(1997:37) suggest that ethnography undertaken by anthropologists should constitute
the field as a site of particularised situated knowledges, in which the field represents
the intersection of multiple social sites and political locations. By extending on Gupta
and Ferguson’s (1997) conceptualisation of situated field sites, the proposed
research situates the field in this context across potentially multiple social sites and
localities to reflect the reflexive constituting of locality as it manifests in the lived
experiences of young witches living in Australia.

Gill’s (2012) conceptualisation of anthropological research is particularly pertinent to

this research project. Specifically, using anthropologically informed embodied
listening. This approach effectively asks the ethnographer to listen carefully to what
people have to say about themselves, and what terms they use to make these
statements (Gill, 2014). This embodied approach to ethnography is the most
effective way of researching the perspectives and experiences of participants.
Through participant observation, the researcher is presented with opportunities to
access emic understandings and insights, in particular, by engaging in witchcraft
rituals and practices this research project aims to access lived bodily knowledge
beyond language. By immersing in and learning the vocabulary of actions, the aim is
to interpret the kinesthetic literacy of the research subjects.

5. Draft Table of Contents for PhD Thesis

Abstract
Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
1.1 Background to the Project
1.2 Research Statement
1.3 Research Objectives
1.4 Research Questions

46
 1.5 Significance of the Study
1.6 Background of the Research Participants
2. Literature Review
2.1 Introduction to Literature Review
2.2 Overview of representations of women’s engagement with witchcraft and the
witch
2.2.1 Witch in Discourse: An overview of understandings of ‘the witch’ from
modernity to post-modernity
2.2.2 An overview of phenomenology and gender: young women and
processes of identity formation
2.2.3 Witchcraft Rituals: Transforming consciousness on an individual and
group level
2.2.4 The Modern Witch: motivations and modes of embodying the witch
2.3 Women in their places, creating new spaces: processes of producing female
centred religion and ritual
2.3.1 The significance of somatic experiences within witchcraft rituals
2.3.2 Researching lived bodily, experiences: current conceptualisations of the
Cartesian dichotomy and preobjective
2.3.3 A phenomenological consideration of experiential participation and
performativity in ritual
2.3.4 Liminality and embodiment in ritual spaces
2.4 Conceptualising Perception and Embodiment
2.4.1 The body in the world: understanding how the body as subject
perceives the world as well as itself
2.4.2 How embodiment allows young practitioners to experience ‘being in the
world’
2.5 A phenomenological framework for considering the conscious and unconscious
modes of embodiment and ritual making
2.6 Counter-cultural religious and spiritual practices
2.6.1 The semiotic significance of utilising the witch for political action
2.7 Conclusion of Literature Review
3. Methodology
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Methodology
3.3Recruitment
3.4 Participant Observation

47
 3.5 Semi-Structured Interviews
3.6 Situating in the field: Ethnographic Research
3.7 Ethical Implications
3.7.1 Informed Consent
3.8 Data analysis
3.9 Conclusion
4. Data Chapter
5. Data Chapter
6. Data Chapter
7. Conclusion
7.1 Bringing main findings together and, thus, moving towards contribution and
applications of my research for future research
7.2 Applications to and Implications for the Field of Research
8. Bibliography
9. Appendices
9.1 HREC Application, PISs and Consent Forms for Participants, and other
attachments

6. Timetable for Completion of the Thesis

2014

Month Tasks to be completed

February -Research question development
-Literature search
March
April -Writing literature review
-Submitting Ethics Application
May - Methodological approach developed
-Ethics Application development
June -Presentation at RHD Symposium
July - Preparation for Confirmation
August
September

October
November - Preparation for Confirmation
- Ethics Application Conditional Approval
December

48
 2015

Month Tasks to be completed

January - HREC response submitted
- Hand in Confirmation

February - Confirmation meeting and verbal defence

March - Preparation for fieldwork

- Contacting participants and participant recruitment
April Commence ethnographic fieldwork in Australia including but
not limited to: New South Wales, Queensland and Melbourne.
May

June

July

August

September

October

November Conference Presentation at annual meetings of the Australian

Anthropological Society (AAS)
December Yearly break: December -January

2016

Month Tasks to be completed

January -Transcribe interviews
February
-Initial data analysis
March -Preparation of paper for international conference
April Submit Abstract for consideration for international conference
May -Writing draft of Chapter Four: Analysis of research results
June
-Writing draft of Chapter Five: Analysis of research results
July
-Writing draft of Chapter Six: Analysis of research results
August
-Writing draft of Chapter Seven: Conclusion
September
-Writing draft of Chapter One: Introduction

-Writing draft of Chapter Four: Literature Review

-Writing draft of Chapter Four: Methodology

October Draft thesis reviewed and edited by student and supervisors.

November Presentation at international conference (AAA)
December Annual break.

49
 2017

Month Tasks to be completed

January - Thesis completed and circulated for final review by
supervisors
February -Intent to submit forms submitted

March - Final draft of thesis being completed

April -Submission of PhD thesis

7. Budget and Resource Description

Resources and Cost Comment

Anticipated Expenses
Local travel within Queensland,
Fieldwork Transport $500 New South Wales and
Victoria
Funding towards
TASA conference 2015 $500 conference
presentations in late stages
AAS Conference 2015 $500 of thesis preparation

Overseas Conference – Funding towards overseas

American Anthropological conference
Association (December $1500 presentation in late stages of
2016; America) thesis preparation

Photocopying $350 Photocopying resources

Thesis Printing $350 Including binding

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