Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa

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Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 9780299166342
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (663 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa by : Heike Behrend

Download or read book Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa written by Heike Behrend and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Africa as well as in Europe, many spirits and their mediums are part of local as well as global cultures. Christian spirits named Hitler, Mussolini, or King Bruce (Bruce Lee) flourish in a pantheon of new holy spirits in Uganda waging war against the government. Spirits of airplanes, engines, guitars, and angels are found in Central Africa; and thunder, snakes, and rain as well as playboys and prostitutes inhabit the spirit world in West Africa. Spirit possession cults have continued to proliferate, even in the secular West, and continue to be a subject of intense interest. Despite the continuous expansion of the field, some problems are only now beginning to be explored. The experts in this volume focus on questions of power, the history and inner dynamics of cults, the role of gender and images of the other, based on research conducted during the last fifteen years in Africa. The contributors document changes taking place across the continent as possession beliefs and practices respond to new circumstances and address the shifting local implications of an increasingly global socio-economy. Gender, ethnicity, and class are examined as intersecting forces and features of spirit phenomena. The case studies presented are richly contextualized: history, social organization and upheaval, alternative religious options--all are considered relevant to an understanding of possession forms. Contributors: Leslie Sharp, Heike Behrend, Adeline Masquelier, Mathias Krings, Jean-Paul Colleyn, Alexandra O. de Sousa, Susan Kenyon, Tobias Wendl, Ute Luig, and Linda Giles Co-published with James Currey Publishers, U.K. The Wisconsin edition is not for sale in the United Kingdon, the traditional British Commonwealth (excepting Canada), nor in Europe.

Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780852552599
Total Pages : 170 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (525 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa by : Heike Behrend

Download or read book Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa written by Heike Behrend and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focuses on questions of power, the history and inner dynamics of cults, and images of the other.

Embodying Colonial Memories

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136652663
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (366 download)

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Book Synopsis Embodying Colonial Memories by : Paul Stoller

Download or read book Embodying Colonial Memories written by Paul Stoller and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-02 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the West African Hauka - spirits that grotesquely mimic and mock "Europeans" of the colonial epoch. The author considers spirit possession as a set of embodied practices with serious social and cultural consequences. Embodying Colonial Memories is the first in-depth study of the West African Hauka, spirits in the body of (human) mediums which mimic and mock Europeans of the colonial epoch. Paul Stoller, who was initiated into a spirit possession troupe, recounts an insider's tale of the Hauka with respect and "brotherly" deference. He combines narrative description, historical analysis, and reflections on the importance of embodiment and mimesis to social theory, with particular reference to the Songhay peoples of the Republic of Niger.

Spirits in Politics

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Publisher : Campus Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3593399156
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (933 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirits in Politics by : Barbara Meier

Download or read book Spirits in Politics written by Barbara Meier and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 4e de couv.: This anthropology addresses persisting questions social anthropologist, historians, and political scientists working in African societies have been confronted with: Do spirits enter the scene after political have failed as a relapse into an allegedly non-modern condition? Or do they precede colonial processes of political transformation, as classis theories of modernization try to establish? The volume seeks to extend the reflections on the relationship of religious phenomena in the socio-political sphere in African societies. It presents case studies which focus on the concepts of modernity, power, and violence, adding the notion of healing to this context and investigating their empirical correlations.

Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136527656
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (365 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa by : John Beattie

Download or read book Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa written by John Beattie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gathering together under a single cover material from a wide range of African societies, this volume allows similarities and differences to be easily perceived and suggests social correlates of these in terms of age, sex, marital status, social grading and wealth. It includes material on both traditional and modern cults.

Ceremonial spirit possession in Africa and Afro-America

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Publisher : Brill Archive
ISBN 13 : 9789004035843
Total Pages : 202 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (358 download)

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Book Synopsis Ceremonial spirit possession in Africa and Afro-America by : Sheila S. Walker

Download or read book Ceremonial spirit possession in Africa and Afro-America written by Sheila S. Walker and published by Brill Archive. This book was released on 1972-01-01 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000517527
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America by : Irving I. Zaretsky

Download or read book Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America written by Irving I. Zaretsky and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-19 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1978 Spirit Possession and Spirit Mediumship in Africa and Afro-America is an incredibly diverse and comprehensive bibliography on published works containing ethnographic data on, and analysis of, spirit possession and spirit mediumship in North and Sub-Saharan Africa and in some Afro-American communities in the Western Hemisphere. The sources on Western Afro-American communities were chosen to shed light on the African continent and the Americas. The bibliography, while not exhaustive, provides extensive research on the area of research in spiritualism in Africa and Afro-America. The bibliography also provides unique sources on spirit cults, ritual or ethnic groups and will be of especial interest to researchers. Although published in the late 70s, this book will still provide an incredibly useful research tool for academics in the area of religion, with a focus on spiritualism and non-western religions.

Spirit Possession

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Publisher : Central European University Press
ISBN 13 : 9633864143
Total Pages : 556 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (338 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit Possession by : Éva Pócs

Download or read book Spirit Possession written by Éva Pócs and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-31 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Possession, a seemingly irrational phenomenon, has posed challenges to generations of scholars rooted in Western notions of body-soul dualism, self and personhood, and a whole set of presuppositions inherited from Christian models of possession that was “good” or “bad.” The authors of the essays in this book present a new and more promising approach. They conceive spirit possession as a form of communication, of expressivity, of culturally defined behavior that should be understood in the context of local, vernacular theories and empiric reflections. With the aim of reformulating the comparative anthropology of spirit possession, the editors have opened corridors between previously separate areas of research. Together, anthropologists and historians working on several historical periods and in different European, African, South American, and Asian cultural areas attempt to redefine the very concept of possession, freeing it from the Western notion of the self and more clearly delineating it from related matters such as witchcraft, devotion, or mysticism. The book also provides an overview of new research directions, including novel methods of participant observation and approaches to spirit possession as indigenous historiography

Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro-America

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004671269
Total Pages : 191 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro-America by : Walker

Download or read book Ceremonial Spirit Possession in Africa and Afro-America written by Walker and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-11-27 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Spirit possession and spirit mediumship in Africa and Afro-America

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 443 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (164 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirit possession and spirit mediumship in Africa and Afro-America by : Irving Zaretsky

Download or read book Spirit possession and spirit mediumship in Africa and Afro-America written by Irving Zaretsky and published by . This book was released on 1978 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Hammer and the Flute

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Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801881886
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (818 download)

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Book Synopsis The Hammer and the Flute by : Mary Keller

Download or read book The Hammer and the Flute written by Mary Keller and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-04-14 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award for the Best First Book in the History of Religions from the American Academy of Religion Feminist theory and postcolonial theory share an interest in developing theoretical frameworks for describing and evaluating subjectivity comparatively, especially with regard to non-autonomous models of agency. As a historian of religions, Mary Keller uses the figure of the "possessed woman" to analyze a subject that is spoken-through rather than speaking and whose will is the will of the ancestor, deity or spirit that wields her to engage the question of agency in a culturally and historically comparative study that recognizes the prominent role possessed women play in their respective traditions. Drawing from the fields of anthropology and comparative psychology, Keller brings the figure of the possessed woman into the heart of contemporary argument as an exemplary model that challenges many Western and feminist assumptions regarding agency. Proposing a new theoretical framework that re-orients scholarship, Keller argues that the subject who is wielded or played, the hammer or the flute, exercises a paradoxical authority—"instrumental agency"—born of their radical receptivity: their power derives from the communities' assessment that they no longer exist as autonomous agents. For Keller, the possessed woman is at once "hammer" and "flute," paradoxically powerful because she has become an instrument of the overpowering will of an ancestor, deity, or spirit. Keller applies the concept of instrumental agency to case studies, providing a new interpretation of each. She begins with contemporary possessions in Malaysia, where women in manufacturing plants were seized by spirits seeking to resacralize the territory. She next looks to wartime Zimbabwe, where female spirit mediums, the Nehanda mhondoro, declared the ancestors' will to fight against colonialism. Finally she provides an imaginative rereading of the performative power of possession by interpreting two plays, Euripides' Bacchae and S. Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, which feature possessed women as central characters. This book can serve as an excellent introduction to postcolonial and feminist theory for graduate students, while grounding its theory in the analysis of regionally and historically specific moments of time that will be of interest to specialists. It also provides an argument for the evaluation of religious lives and their struggles for meaning and power in the contemporary landscape of critical theory.

Negotiating Modernity

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Publisher : Zed Books
ISBN 13 : 9781842776179
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (761 download)

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Book Synopsis Negotiating Modernity by : Elsio Salvado Macamo

Download or read book Negotiating Modernity written by Elsio Salvado Macamo and published by Zed Books. This book was released on 2005-10 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of Africa's experience of modernity which draws out its wider implications for social theory

African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139561049
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (395 download)

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Book Synopsis African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry by : Ras Michael Brown

Download or read book African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry written by Ras Michael Brown and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry examines perceptions of the natural world revealed by the religious ideas and practices of African-descended communities in South Carolina from the colonial period into the twentieth century. Focusing on Kongo nature spirits known as the simbi, Ras Michael Brown describes the essential role religion played in key historical processes, such as establishing new communities and incorporating American forms of Christianity into an African-based spirituality. This book illuminates how people of African descent engaged the spiritual landscape of the Lowcountry through their subsistence practices, religious experiences and political discourse.

Worlds of Power

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 9780195220162
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (21 download)

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Book Synopsis Worlds of Power by : Stephen Ellis

Download or read book Worlds of Power written by Stephen Ellis and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2004 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Christian revivals (including Evangelicals in the White House), Islamic radicalism and the revitalisation of traditional religions it is clear that the world is not heading towards a community of secular states. Nowhere are religious thought and political practice more closely intertwined than in Africa. African migrants in Europe and America who send home money to build churches and mosques, African politicians who consult diviners, guerrilla fighters who believe that amulets can protect them from bullets, and ordinary people who seek ritual healing: all of these are applying religious ideas to everyday problems of existence, at every level of society. Far from falling off the map of the world, Africa is today a leading centre of Christianity and a growing field of Islamic activism, while African traditional religions are gaining converts in the West. One cannot understand the politics of the present without taking religious thought seriously. Stories about witches, miracles, or people returning from the dead incite political action. In Africa religious belief has a huge impact on politics, from the top of society to the bottom. Religious ideas show what people actually think about the world and how to deal with it. Ellis and Ter Haar maintain that the specific content of religious thought has to be mastered if we are to grasp the political significance of religion in Africa today, but their book also informs our understanding of the relationship between religion and political practice in general.

Spirited Things

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022612293X
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Spirited Things by : Paul Christopher Johnson

Download or read book Spirited Things written by Paul Christopher Johnson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-05-07 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The word “possession” is anything but transparent, especially as it developed in the context of the African Americas. There it referred variously to spirits, material goods, and people. It served as a watershed term marking both transactions in which people were made into things—via slavery—and ritual events by which the thingification of people was revised. In Spirited Things, Paul Christopher Johnson gathers together essays by leading anthropologists in the Americas that reopen the concept of possession on these two fronts in order to examine the relationship between African religions in the Atlantic and the economies that have historically shaped—and continue to shape—the cultures that practice them. Exploring the way spirit possessions were framed both by material things—including plantations, the Catholic church, the sea, and the phonograph—as well as by the legacy of slavery, they offer a powerful new way of understanding the Atlantic world.

Remains of Ritual

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226265064
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (262 download)

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Book Synopsis Remains of Ritual by : Steven M. Friedson

Download or read book Remains of Ritual written by Steven M. Friedson and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-07-15 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Remains of Ritual, Steven M. Friedson’s second book on musical experience in African ritual, focuses on the Brekete/Gorovodu religion of the Ewe people. Friedson presents a multifaceted understanding of religious practice through a historical and ethnographic study of one of the dominant ritual sites on the southern coast of Ghana: a medicine shrine whose origins lie in the northern region of the country. Each chapter of this fascinating book considers a different aspect of ritual life, demonstrating throughout that none of them can be conceived of separately from their musicality—in the Brekete world, music functions as ritual and ritual as music. Dance and possession, chanted calls to prayer, animal sacrifice, the sounds and movements of wake keeping, the play of the drums all come under Friedson’s careful scrutiny, as does his own position and experience within this ritual-dominated society.

Modernity and Its Malcontents

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Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226114406
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (261 download)

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Book Synopsis Modernity and Its Malcontents by : Jean Comaroff

Download or read book Modernity and Its Malcontents written by Jean Comaroff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993-11 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What role does ritual play in the everyday lives of modern Africans? How are so-called "traditional" cultural forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where "modernity" has failed to deliver on its promises? Some of the essays in Modernity and Its Malcontents address familiar anthropological issues—like witchcraft, myth, and the politics of reproduction—but treat them in fresh ways, situating them amidst the polyphonies of contemporary Africa. Others explore distinctly nontraditional subjects—among them the Nigerian popular press and soul-eating in Niger—in such a way as to confront the conceptual limits of Western social science. Together they demonstrate how ritual may be powerfuly mobilized in the making of history, present, and future. Addressing challenges posed by contemporary African realities, the authors subject such concepts as modernity, ritual, power, and history to renewed critical scrutiny. Writing about a variety of phenomena, they are united by a wish to preserve the diversity and historical specificity of local signs and practices, voices and perspectives. Their work makes a substantial and original contribution toward the historical anthropology of Africa. The contributors, all from the Africanist circle at the University of Chicago, are Adeline Masquelier, Deborah Kaspin, J. Lorand Matory, Ralph A. Austen, Andrew Apter, Misty L. Bastian, Mark Auslander, and Pamela G. Schmoll.