Neighbors, Strangers, Witches, and Culture-Heroes (eBook)

Ritual Powers of Smith/Artisans in Tuareg Society and Beyond

Susan Rasmussen (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013
176 Seiten
Upa (Verlag)
978-0-7618-6149-2 (ISBN)

Infos

This book examines alleged “superhuman” powers associated with smith/artisans in five African societies. It discusses their ritual and social roles, mythico-histories, and changing relationships between specialists and patrons. Rasmussen uses primary source data from her research in Tuareg communities and compares this to secondary data on four other African societies.

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This book examines alleged ';superhuman' powers predominantly associated with smith/artisans in five African societies. It discusses their ritual and social roles, mythico-histories, symbols surrounding their art, and changing relationships between these specialists and their patrons. Needed but also feared, these smith/artisans work in traditionally hereditary occupations and in stratified but negotiable relationships with their rural patron families. Many of them now also work for new customers in an expanding market economy, which is still characterized by personal, face-to-face interactions. Rasmussen maintains that a framework integrating anthropological theories of witchcraft, alterity, symbolism, and power is fundamental to understanding local accusations and tensions in these relationships. She also argues that it is critical to deconstruct and disentangle guilt, blame, and envyconcepts that are often conflated in anthropology at the expense of falsely accused ';witch' figures. The first portion of this book is an ethnographic analysis of smith/artisans in Tuareg society, and draws on primary source data from this author's long-term social/cultural anthropological field research in Tuareg (Kel Tamajaq) communities of northern Niger and Mali. The latter portion of the book is a cross-cultural comparison, and it re-analyzes the Tuareg case, drawing on secondary data on ritual powers and smith/artisans in four other African societies: the Amhara of Ethiopia, the Bidan (Moors) of Mauritania, the Kapsiki of Cameroon, and the Mande of southern Mali. In the concluding analysis, there is discussion of similarities and differences between these cases, the social consequences of ritual knowledge and power in each community, and their wider implications for anthropology of religion, human rights, and African studies.

Autor

Susan Rasmussen is professor of anthropology in the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Houston. Her interests include anthropology of religion, medico-ritual healing and healing specialists, gender, and aging and the life course. She is also interested in rural and urban artisans, verbal art performance, ethnographic analysis, culture theory, and African humanities. She has published four books and many articles based on data from her long-term field research in Tuareg communities of northern Niger and Mali, and more briefly among Tuareg and other Berber (Amazigh) expatriates, immigrants, and travelers in France and the United States.

Inhalt

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1 Tezma Power and Tuareg Inaden Smith/ArtisansChapter 2 Inaden Origins, Histories, and Professional PracticesChapter 3 Powers, Tensions, and MediationsChapter 4 Q’alb Power and Amhara Buda/Tayb Smith/ArtisansChapter 5 Echar Power and Bidan M’Allemin Smith/ArtisansChapter 6 Beshengu Power and Kapsiki Rerhe Smith/ArtisansChapter 7 Nyama Power and Mande Nyamakala Smith/ArtisansConclusionsBibliographyIndexAuthor Biography

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 24.9.2013
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie ► Volkskunde
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• Schlagworte: African Religion • Religion • Ritual • Tribal custom • Tribal religion • Witchcraft
• ISBN-10: 0-7618-6149-1 / 0761861491
• ISBN-13: 978-0-7618-6149-2 / 9780761861492