Nostos Salon 12
A monthly gathering of good food, drinks, and conversation—where anthropology meets community in an engaging, accessible way.
The Anthropology of witchcraft and everyday rituals of resistance with Dr Emma Quilty
Our Nostos gathering on the 25th of October (our halloween special) explored the anthropology of witchcraft, ritual, and resistance, examining how everyday spiritual practices, the small acts of ceremony, gathering, and defiance woven into ordinary life, are quietly reshaping how contemporary Australians confront power, gender, and belonging. In an era marked by a renewed cultural embrace of witchcraft, growing feminist scrutiny of patriarchal structures, and mounting anxiety about identity, agency, and community, this conversation invites us to reflect on how resistance is imagined, and whose practices get to count as political.
Through the lens of anthropology, feminist theory, and interdisciplinary research into embodied practice, we'll explore how people actually live with ritual, magic, and community, and how ethnographies grounded in real lives can challenge assumptions about what counts as serious spiritual or political work. How does watching the way people gather, cast, journal, and mark their days reveal something that dominant frameworks alone cannot? What does it mean to take witchcraft seriously as a form of feminist resistance rather than as fringe curiosity? Whose everyday practices are treated as sacred or subversive, and whose are dismissed as trivial? And how might grounded, people-centred research help us understand the political power of ritual in contemporary life?
We were delighted to welcome Dr Emma Quilty, feminist anthropologist, practising witch, and Research Fellow at Monash University's Centre for Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Her research foregrounds embodied, feminist, and sensory ethnographic methods to examine how gender, power, and technology shape everyday life, currently through work on algorithmic harm, technology-facilitated violence, and the politics of ritual. Her recent book, Witch Power: Hexing the Patriarchy with Feminist Magic (Polity Books, 2025), draws on immersive fieldwork with witchcraft communities in Australia and the United States, tracing how contemporary witches use ritual, hexing, and community to confront patriarchal structures, reclaim agency, and imagine other ways of being. You can learn more about her work at.
Special thanks to NON and NOW Wines for supporting this event.
Recommended Reading and Resources via Zine
"Every age embraces the witch it needs. Right now, the world needs witchy feminists. This isn’t a book about ancient spells or Hollywood stereotypes. It’s about real Australian women using ritual, community, and spirit to find magic in the margins, resist misogyny, and heal from harm.”
― Emma Quilty (on the launch of Witch Power, 2025)