To the Witches and Ghosts Among Us: Creating Space for Non-Human Agents within Academia

Abstract

One glaring condition of the enlightenment and modernity is that human beings have been placed at the centre of the world in majority of academic disciplines, a condition which the Social Sciences have not been spared from. Our laws do not make space for any other agent than the human, resulting in a worldview that is emptied out of magic and external change and within which the divine does not have an agentive role. The project aims to explore how we as scholars can be more accepting of and hospitable of multiple temporalities. Following the guidelines prescribed by grounded theory; I have conducted fifteen in depth interviews with Pakistanis who claim to have had a supernatural encounter of any sort. My analysis, which is divided into four categories pertaining to haunted houses, rural areas, an urban legend and curses, reveals that taking presence seriously aids rather than hampers sociological knowledge and understanding.