Wombs and Alien Spirits

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Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 0299123138
Total Pages : 425 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (991 download)

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Book Synopsis Wombs and Alien Spirits by : Janice Boddy

Download or read book Wombs and Alien Spirits written by Janice Boddy and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1989-12-01 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Muslim village in northern Sudan, Wombs and Alien Spirits explores the zâr cult, the most widely practiced traditional healing cult in Africa. Adherents of the cult are usually women with marital or fertility problems, who are possessed by spirits very different from their own proscribed roles as mothers. Through the woman, the spirit makes demands upon her husband and family and makes provocative comments on village issues, such as the increasing influence of formal Islam or encroaching Western economic domination. In accommodating the spirits, the women are able metaphorically to reformulate everyday discourse to portray consciousness of their own subordination. Janice Boddy examines the moral universe of the village, discussing female circumcision, personhood, kinship, and bodily integrity, then describes the workings of the cult and the effect of possession on the lives of men as well as women. She suggests that spirit possession is a feminist discourse, though a veiled and allegorical one, on women's objectification and subordination. Additionally, the spirit world acts as a foil for village life in the context of rapid historical change and as such provides a focus for cultural resistance that is particularly, though not exclusively, relevant to women.

Wombs and Alien Spirits

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Author :
Publisher : University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 9780299123147
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (231 download)

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Book Synopsis Wombs and Alien Spirits by : Janice Boddy

Download or read book Wombs and Alien Spirits written by Janice Boddy and published by University of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1989-12-15 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Muslim village in northern Sudan, Wombs and Alien Spirits explores the zâr cult, the most widely practiced traditional healing cult in Africa. Adherents of the cult are usually women with marital or fertility problems, who are possessed by spirits very different from their own proscribed roles as mothers. Through the woman, the spirit makes demands upon her husband and family and makes provocative comments on village issues, such as the increasing influence of formal Islam or encroaching Western economic domination. In accommodating the spirits, the women are able metaphorically to reformulate everyday discourse to portray consciousness of their own subordination. Janice Boddy examines the moral universe of the village, discussing female circumcision, personhood, kinship, and bodily integrity, then describes the workings of the cult and the effect of possession on the lives of men as well as women. She suggests that spirit possession is a feminist discourse, though a veiled and allegorical one, on women's objectification and subordination. Additionally, the spirit world acts as a foil for village life in the context of rapid historical change and as such provides a focus for cultural resistance that is particularly, though not exclusively, relevant to women.

Civilizing Women

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Author :
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780691123059
Total Pages : 438 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Civilizing Women by : Janice Boddy

Download or read book Civilizing Women written by Janice Boddy and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-22 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118660080
Total Pages : 717 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (186 download)

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Book Synopsis The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality by : Vasudha Narayanan

Download or read book The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality written by Vasudha Narayanan and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-04-27 with total page 717 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality provides a thoughtfully organized, inclusive, and vibrant project of the multiple ways in which religion and materiality intersect. The contributions explore the way that religion is shaped by, and has shaped, the material world, embedding beliefs, doctrines, and texts into social and cultural contexts of production, circulation, and consumption. The Companion not only contains scholarly essays but has an accompanying website to demonstrate the work of performers, architects, and expressive artists, ranging from musicians and dancers to religious practitioners. These examples offer specific illustrations of the interplay of religion and materiality in everyday life. The project is organized from a comparative perspective, highlighting examples and case studies from traditions originating in both East and West. To summarize, the volume: Brings together the leading figures, theories and ideas in the field in a systematic and comprehensive way Offers an interdisciplinary approach drawing together religious studies, anthropology, archaeology, history, sociology, geography, the cognitive sciences, ecology, and media studies Takes a comparative perspective, covering all the major faith traditions

Embodying Honor

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Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN 13 : 0299223833
Total Pages : 234 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Embodying Honor by : Amal Fadlalla

Download or read book Embodying Honor written by Amal Fadlalla and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 2007-11-20 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Red Sea Hills of eastern Sudan, where poverty, famines, and conflict loom large, women struggle to gain the status of responsible motherhood through bearing and raising healthy children, especially sons. But biological fate can be capricious in impoverished settings. Amidst struggle for survival and expectations of heroic mothering, women face realities that challenge their ability to fulfill their prescribed roles. Even as the effects of modernity and development, global inequities, and exclusionary government policies challenge traditional ways of life in eastern Sudan and throughout many parts of Africa, reproductive traumas—infertility, miscarriage, children’s illnesses, and mortality—disrupt women’s reproductive health and impede their efforts to achieve the status that comes with fertility and motherhood. In Embodying Honor Amal Hassan Fadlalla finds that the female body is the locus of anxieties about foreign dangers and diseases, threats perceived to be disruptive to morality, feminine identities, and social well-being. As a “northern Sudanese” viewed as an outsider in this region of her native country, Fadlalla presents an intimate portrait and thorough analysis that offers an intriguing commentary on the very notion of what constitutes the “foreign.” Fadlalla shows how Muslim Hadendowa women manage health and reproductive suffering in their quest to become “responsible” mothers and valued members of their communities. Her historically grounded ethnography delves into women’s reproductive histories, personal narratives, and ritual logics to reveal the ways in which women challenge cultural understandings of gender, honor, and reproduction.

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.

A Woman's Weapon

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Publisher : University of Hawaii Press
ISBN 13 : 9780824818586
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (185 download)

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Book Synopsis A Woman's Weapon by : Doris G. Bargen

Download or read book A Woman's Weapon written by Doris G. Bargen and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text presents an examination of Murasaki Shikibu's 11th-century classic The Tale of Genji. The author explores the role of possessing spirits from a female viewpoint, and considers how the male protagonist is central to determining the role of these spirits.

A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119124999
Total Pages : 584 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (191 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion by : Janice Boddy

Download or read book A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion written by Janice Boddy and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to the Anthropology of Religion presents a collection of original, ethnographically-informed essays that explore the variety of beliefs, practices, and religious experiences in the contemporary world and asks how to think about religion as a subject of anthropological inquiry. Presents a collection of original, ethnographically-informed essays exploring the wide variety of beliefs, practices, and religious experiences in the contemporary world Explores a broad range of topics including the ‘perspectivism’ debate, the rise of religious nationalism, reflections on religion and new media, religion and politics, and ideas of self and gender in relation to religious belief Includes examples drawn from different religious traditions and from several regions of the world Features newly-commissioned articles reflecting the most up-to-date research and critical thinking in the field, written by an international team of leading scholars Adds immeasurably to our understanding of the complex relationships between religion, culture, society, and the individual in today’s world

The Red Tent

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Publisher : Macmillan
ISBN 13 : 0312169787
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (121 download)

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Book Synopsis The Red Tent by : Anita Diamant

Download or read book The Red Tent written by Anita Diamant and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-09-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the Book of Genesis, Dinah shares her perspective on religious practices and sexul politics.

The Invention of Africa

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Publisher : James Currey Publishers
ISBN 13 : 9780253204684
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (46 download)

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Book Synopsis The Invention of Africa by : V. Y. Mudimbe

Download or read book The Invention of Africa written by V. Y. Mudimbe and published by James Currey Publishers. This book was released on 1988-05-22 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What is the meaning of Africa and being an African? What is and what is not African philosophy? Is philosophy part of Africanism? These are the kinds of fundamental questions that this book addresses. V. Y. Mudimbe argues that the various discourses themselves establish the worlds of thought in which people conceive their identity. Western anthropology and missionaries have introduced distortions not only for outsiders but also for Africans trying to understand themselves. Mudimbe goes beyond the classic issues of African anthropology or history. He says that the book attempts an archeology of African gnosis as a system of knowledge in which major philosophical questions recently have arisen: first, concerning the form, the content, and the style of Africanizing knowledge; second, concerning the status of traditional systems of thought. He is directly concerned with the processes of transformation of different types of knowledge." -- P. 4 of cover.

Death Without Weeping

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Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520911563
Total Pages : 632 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (29 download)

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Book Synopsis Death Without Weeping by : Nancy Scheper-Hughes

Download or read book Death Without Weeping written by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2023-11-10 with total page 632 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When lives are dominated by hunger, what becomes of love? When assaulted by daily acts of violence and untimely death, what happens to trust? Set in the lands of Northeast Brazil, this is an account of the everyday experience of scarcity, sickness and death that centres on the lives of the women and children of a hillside "favela". Bringing her readers to the impoverished slopes above the modern plantation town of Bom Jesus de Mata, where she has worked on and off for 25 years, Nancy Scheper-Hughes follows three generations of shantytown women as they struggle to survive through hard work, cunning and triage. It is a story of class relations told at the most basic level of bodies, emotions, desires and needs. Most disturbing - and controversial - is her finding that mother love, as conventionally understood, is something of a bourgeois myth, a luxury for those who can reasonably expect, as these women cannot, that their infants will live.

Sociology of Diagnosis

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Publisher : Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0857245767
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (572 download)

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Book Synopsis Sociology of Diagnosis by : PJ McGann

Download or read book Sociology of Diagnosis written by PJ McGann and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an introduction to the sociology of diagnosis. This title presents articles that explore diagnosis as a process of definition that includes: labeling dynamics between diagnoser and diagnosed; boundary struggles between diverse constituents - both among medical practitioners and between medical authorities and others; and, more.

A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119251486
Total Pages : 483 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (192 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa by : Roy Richard Grinker

Download or read book A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa written by Roy Richard Grinker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2019-02-06 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential collection of scholarly essays on the anthropology of Africa, offering a thorough introduction to the most important topics in this evolving and diverse field of study The study of the cultures of Africa has been central to the methodological and theoretical development of anthropology as a discipline since the late 19th-century. As the anthropology of Africa has emerged as a distinct field of study, anthropologists working in this tradition have strived to build a disciplinary conversation that recognizes the diversity and complexity of modern and ancient African cultures while acknowledging the effects of historical anthropology on the present and future of the field of study. A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa is a collection of insightful essays covering the key questions and subjects in the contemporary anthropology of Africa with a key focus on addressing the topics that define the contemporary discipline. Written and edited by a team of leading cultural anthropologists, it is an ideal introduction to the most important topics in the field, both those that have consistently been a part of the critical dialogue and those that have emerged as the central questions of the discipline’s future. Beginning with essays on the enduring topics in the study of African cultures, A Companion to the Anthropology of Africa provides a foundation in the contemporary critical approach to subjects of longstanding interest. With these subjects as a groundwork, later essays address decolonization, the postcolonial experience, and questions of modern identity and definition, providing representation of the diverse thinking and scholarship in the modern anthropology of Africa.

African American Religion

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195182898
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (951 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Religion by : Eddie S. Glaude (Jr.)

Download or read book African American Religion written by Eddie S. Glaude (Jr.) and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "African American Religion offers a provocative historical and philosophical treatment of the religious life of African Americans. Glaude argues that the phrase "African American religion" is meaningful only insofar as it singles out the distinctive waysreligion has been leveraged by African Americans to respond to different racial regimes in the United States. That bold claim frames how he reads the historical record. Slavery, Jim Crow, and current appeals to color blindness serve as a backdrop for histreatment of conjure, African American Christianity and Islam"--

Zar

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Publisher : American University in Cairo Press
ISBN 13 : 1617977713
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (179 download)

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Book Synopsis Zar by : Hager El Hadidi

Download or read book Zar written by Hager El Hadidi and published by American University in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the history and waning culture of zar in Egypt, and the world in which Muslim women negotiate relations with spirits Zar is both a possessing spirit and a set of reconciliation rites between the spirits and their human hosts: living in a parallel yet invisible world, the capricious spirits manifest their anger by causing ailments for their hosts, which require ritual reconciliation, a private sacrificial rite practiced routinely by the afflicted devotees. Originally spread from Ethiopia to the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf through the nineteenth-century slave trade, in Egypt zar has incorporated elements from popular Islamic Sufi practices, including devotion to Christian and Muslim saints. The ceremonies initiate devotees—the majority of whom are Muslim women—into a community centered on a cult leader, a membership that provides them with moral orientation, social support, and a sense of belonging. Practicing zar rituals, dancing to zar songs, and experiencing trance restore their well-being, which had been compromised by gender asymmetry and globalization. This new ethnographic study of zar in Egypt is based on the author’s two years of multi-sited fieldwork and firsthand knowledge as a participant, and her collection and analysis of more than three hundred zar songs, allowing her to access levels of meaning that had previously been overlooked. The result is a comprehensive and accessible exposition of the history, culture, and waning practice of zar in a modernizing world.

In the Realm of the Diamond Queen

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400843472
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Realm of the Diamond Queen by : Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

Download or read book In the Realm of the Diamond Queen written by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly original and much-anticipated ethnography, Anna Tsing challenges not only anthropologists and feminists but all those who study culture to reconsider some of their dearest assumptions. By choosing to locate her study among Meratus Dayaks, a marginal and marginalized group in the deep rainforest of South Kalimantan, Indonesia, Tsing deliberately sets into motion the familiar and stubborn urban fantasies of self and other. Unusual encounters with her remarkably creative and unconventional Meratus friends and teachers, however, provide the opportunity to rethink notions of tradition, community, culture, power, and gender--and the doing of anthropology. Tsing's masterful weaving of ethnography and theory, as well as her humor and lucidity, allow for an extraordinary reading experience for students, scholars, and anyone interested in the complexities of culture. Engaging Meratus in wider conversations involving Indonesian bureaucrats, family planners, experts in international development, Javanese soldiers, American and French feminists, Asian-Americans, right-to-life advocates, and Western intellectuals, Tsing looks not for consensus and coherence in Meratus culture but rather allows individual Meratus men and women to return our gaze. Bearing the fruit from the lively contemporary conversations between anthropology and cultural studies, In the Realm of the Diamond Queen will prove to be a model for thinking and writing about gender, power, and the politics of identity.

A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition

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Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 1442606614
Total Pages : 603 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (426 download)

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Book Synopsis A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition by : Paul A. Erickson

Download or read book A History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition written by Paul A. Erickson and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-04-26 with total page 603 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the latest edition of their popular overview text, Erickson and Murphy continue to provide a comprehensive, affordable, and accessible introduction to anthropological theory from antiquity to the present. A new section on twenty-first-century anthropological theory has been added, with more coverage given to postcolonialism, non-Western anthropology, and public anthropology. The book has also been redesigned to be more visually and pedagogically engaging. Used on its own, or paired with the companion volume Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory, Fourth Edition, this reader offers a flexible and highly useful resource for the undergraduate anthropology classroom. For additional resources, visit the "Teaching Theory" page at www.utpteachingculture.com.