Details

Spirit Service

Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World

von: Eric James Montgomery, Timothy R. Landry, Christian N. Vannier, Venise N. Adjibodou, Jeffrey E. Anderson, Nixon Cleophat, Douglas J. Falen, Natacha Giafferi-Dombre, Alissa M. Jordan, Elizabeth McAlister, Karen Richman, Terry Rey
38,99 €
Verlag:	Indiana University Press
Format:	EPUB
Veröffentl.:	07.06.2022
ISBN/EAN:	9780253061928
Sprache:	englisch
Anzahl Seiten:	346

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Beschreibungen

Titelbeschreibung

Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodún, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization. 
Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world. By examining the systems—ritual practices, community-based spirit veneration, and spiritual means of securing opportunity and well-being—alongside the individuals who worship, this rich collection offers the first comprehensive ethnographic study of West African spirit service on a broad scale. Contributors consider social encounters between African/Haitian practitioners and European / North American spiritual seekers, economies and histories, funerary rites and spirit possessions, and examinations of gender and materiality. 
Offering much-needed perspective on this historically disparaged religion, Spirit Service reminds us all that the gods are growing, assimilating, and demanding recognition and respect.

Titelkurzbeschreibung

—Eric Montgomery is based in East Lansing, MI —Christian Vannier is based in Flint, MI —Tim Landry is based in Hartford, CT — The editors of this volume are early in their careers but are making clear and valuable contributions to the field. They are rising stars in a field where it is difficult to make a mark, and they are generous in their inclusion of precariously-positioned scholars and docrotal candidates in this work. — As religious systems, Vodún, Vodu, and Vodou share an open adaptability which encourages creativity, experimentation, and integration. This adaptability allows the conversation in this collection to move beyond "Africanness" and "European influences" to instead examine how political economies, histories, ritual practices, and migrations produce and reproduce the spirits and the values and practices that surround them. — The collection will appeal to scholars and students of anthropology, sociology, Atlantic and diasporic history, African studies, Caribbean studies, anthropology of religion, and global studies. While there are few courses which focus particularly on Vodún and Vodou throughout an entire semester, each chapter has been written to appeal to course instructors and to upper-level undergraduates for inclusion in course packets. For this reason, the collection would also appeal to those with a general interest in the topic.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction, by Christian Vannier and Timothy R. Landry Part I: Encounter 1. Vodou Genesis: Africans and the Making of a National Religion in Saint-Domingue, by Terry Rey 2. Universalism and Syncretism in Beninese Vodún, by Douglas J. Falen 3. Crossing Currents: Gorovodu and Yewevodu in Contemporary Togo, by Eric James Montgomery 4. A Prayer for a Muslim Spirit: Islam in Gorovodu, by Christian Vannier 5. Where Have All the Ounsi Gone?, by Karen Richman 6. Sailing between Local and Global: Vodou in the Modern and Contemporary Arts of Haiti, by Natacha Giafferi-Dombre Part II: Engagement 7. Taking Hold of a Faith, by Jeffrey E. Anderson 8. The Physic(s)ality of Vodún and the (Mis)behavior of Matter, by Venise N. Adjibodou 9. Vodou Skins: Making Bodily Surfaces Social in Haitian Vodou Infant-Care, by Alissa M. Jordan 10. Spirited Forests and the West African Forest Complex, by Timothy R. Landry 11. Vodou, an Inclusive Epistemology: Towards A Queer Eco-Theology of Liberation, by Nixon Cleophat 12. Necroscape and Diaspora: Making Ancestors in Haitian Vodou, by Elizabeth McAlister 13. Conclusion: Global Vodún and Vodou: Encounter and Engagement, by Eric James Montgomery and Timothy R. Landry Index

Autorenportrait

Eric J. Montgomery is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University and Saperstein Senior Fellow and Faculty in the Center for Peace and Conflict Studies at Wayne State University. He is coauthor of An Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo and editor of Shackled Sentiments: Slaves, Spirits, and Memories in the African Diaspora.
Timothy R. Landry is Associate Professor in the departments of Anthropology and Religious Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He is the author of Vodún: Secrecy and the Search for Divine Power.
Christian N. Vannier is Lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Michigan, Flint. He is the co-author of An Ethnography of a Vodu Shrine in Southern Togo and coeditor of Cultures of Doing Good: Anthropologists and NGOs.

Unpublished endorsement

The religious systems known as Vodu, Vodún, Vaudou, Voodoo, Gorovodu, and more have never been so thoroughly explored, interpreted, interrogated, and esteemed as by the writers of this lavish collection. The fourteen chapters in this volume provide extraordinarily diverse descriptions and narratives that allow readers to understand in abundant detail how Vodún (etc.) is not a single religion, but rather a vast global proliferation of sacred beliefs and practices that are in many ways related to one another, yet significantly different from place to place and through different historical periods. Readers will appreciate not only the diversity of forms and intentions of spirit service, but also that of the writers' relationships to their subjects, their closeness to the rituals or their more scientific distance, their identification (or not) with the community they study, their attention to performance, passion, aesthetics, rapture; and finally to political issues, class and race, state intervention, colonialism and its violence. This collection is an excellent and necessary addition to anthropology, history, and religious studies courses on Haiti, Voodoo in the U.S., African cultures, world religions, religious ritual and performance, art, and more.