Obeah and Other Powers The Politics of Caribbean Religion and Healing
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Diana Paton is a Reader in Caribbean history at Newcastle University. She is the author of No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870 and editor of A Narrative of Events, since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams, an Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica and, with Pamela Scully, Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World, all also published by Duke University Press.
Maarit Forde is a Lecturer in the Department of Liberal Arts at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.
“<i>Obeah and Other Powers</i> is an excellent and welcome contribution to scholarship on Caribbean religions. Too few works explicitly address the three themes taken up in this collection, the significance of state power in shaping the environment in which Caribbean religions were practiced, the role of practitioners in shaping their religious traditions, and the role of mobility and the permeability of borders in shaping the definition and interpretation of obeah, Vodou, SanterÍa, and CandomblÉ. This last premise enables the contributors to analyze these religions in conjunction with one another and as overlapping, rather than separate, phenomena.”-<b>Aisha Khan</b>, author of <i>Callaloo Nation: Metaphors of Race and Religious Identity among South Asians in Trinidad</i> "The contributors to this outstanding collection share the refreshing ambition to historicize local knowledge and to embrace the opacity and persisting mystique of Caribbean spiritual realities-from the colonial occult to enchanted modernities."-<b>Richard Price</b>, author of <i>Travels with Tooy</i> and <i>Rainforest Warriors</i> “Each and every chapter of <i>Obeah and Other Powers</i> is a gem in its own right, and yet this splendid collection is also much more than simply the sum of its parts. Indeed, the volume achieves an impressive level of sophistication in Caribbeanist historical anthropology and Black Atlantic religious studies, and its release - along with the publication of Jerome Handler and Kenneth Bilby’s<i> Enacting Power</i> - makes 2012 something of a watershed moment in the study of the dynamic and rather unruly set of spiritual beliefs and ritual practices so often glossed as obeah in Afro- Atlantic studies.” - Keith E. McNeal (Hispanic American Historical Review) “A clear introduction and the well-developed, carefully composed chapters redeem the book…. [T]he book offers a great deal. Smith’s chapter would be a welcome addition to a gender and women’s studies classroom. Likewise, Savage’s contribution would work well in a history of medicine course. Putnam’s essay is required reading for students interested in Atlantic history. Finally, Richman’s chapter would fit well in a religious studies course.” - Karol K. Weaver (Bulletin of the History of Medicine) “In bringing together such a strong group of scholars to consider the production and reproduction of Caribbean ritual, spiritual practices, Paton and Forde have made a significant contribution to advancing scholarly understanding of this important subject and indeed to Caribbean history and studies more generally." - Juanita De Barros (Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History) “<i>Obeah and Other Powers</i>… is likely to stimulate much interest and debate as scholars continue the difficult task of sifting through hostile representations of Caribbean religious beliefs and practices to better understand those beliefs and practices on their own terms.” - Randy M. Browne (History: Reviews of New Books)
Contributors. Kenneth Bilby, Erna Brodber, Alejandra Bronfman, Elizabeth Cooper, Maarit Forde, Stephan PalmiÉ, Diana Paton, Alasdair Pettinger, Lara Putnam, Karen Richman, Raquel Romberg, John Savage, Katherine Smith
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction / Maarit Forde and Diana Paton 1
Part I. Powers of Representation
1. An (Un)natural Mystic in the Air: Images of Obeah in Caribbean Song / Kenneth Bilby 45
2. "Eh! eh! Bomba, hen! hen!": Making Sense of a Vodou Chant / Alasdair Pettinger 80
3. On Swelling: Slavery, Social Science, and Medicine in the Nineteenth Century / Alejandra Bronfman 103
4. Atis Rezistans: Gede and the Art of Vagabondaj / Katherine Smith 121
Part II. Modernity and Tradition in the Making
5. Slave Poison / Slave Medicine: The Persistence of Obeah in Early Nineteenth-Century Martinique / John Savage 149
6. The Trials of Inspector Thomas: Policing and Ethnography in Jamaica / Diana Paton 172
7. The Moral Economy of Spiritual Work: Money and Rituals in Trinidad and Tobago / Maarit Forde 198
8. The Open Secrets of Solares / Elizabeth Cooper 220
Part III. Powers on the Move
9. Rites of Power and Rumors of Race: The Circulation of Supernatural Knowledge in the Greater Caribbean, 1890–1940 / Lara Putnam 243
10. The Vodou State and the Protestant Nation: Haiti in the Long Twentieth Century / Karen Richman 268
11. The Moral Economy of Brujería under the Modern Colony: A Pirated Modernity? / Raquel Romberg 288
Afterword. Other Powers: Tylor's Principle, Father Williams's Temptations, and the Power of Banality / Stephan Palmíe 316
Contributors 341
Index 345
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Diana Paton is a Reader in Caribbean history at Newcastle University. She is the author of No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780–1870 and editor of A Narrative of Events, since the First of August, 1834, by James Williams, an Apprenticed Labourer in Jamaica and, with Pamela Scully, Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World, all also published by Duke University Press.
Maarit Forde is a Lecturer in the Department of Liberal Arts at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine.