Журнальный клуб Интелрос » Социологическое обозрение » т. 15, №4, 2016
Emeritus Professor of Sociology Richard Jenkins is known as the author of books about youth life-styles, labour markets, the hidden economy, Pierre Bourdieu, ethnicity, social identity, and other socially important topics. The idea for his recent book was informed by local rumours circulating of black magic practitioners across the author’s home region in the northern part of Northern Ireland in the second half of 1972, with initial reports of sheep being cut open, followed by a case of a murdered child occurring that remained unsolved. The book tells the story of how the local moral panic rose and fell during the half-year wave of rumours about allegedlyactual evidence of practicing witchcraft and black magic rituals, taking place in the early times of the Northern Ireland Trouble, which was the ethno-nationalist conflict1 at the end of the 20th century between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Of course, a low intensity of background discussions about supernatural forces is usual even in spaceage everyday life, especially on the eve of such events as Halloween, but the cases when the dangers from supernatural forces become a public concern are far from usual. Thus, the story tells about a series of unusual events.