Spirit Possession, Modernity and Power in Africa

by Ute Luig Heike Behrend, Heike Behrend (Editor)

'The articles in this book make valuable contributions to the literature of African religious experience. The majority of the pieces are based on research conducted in the last 10 to 15 years, and are therefore positioned to 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 rightly presented as intersecting forces and features of spirit phenomena. The case studies presented are richly contextualized: history, social organization and upheaval, alternative religious options where applicable - all are considered relevant to an understanding of possession forms.' - Janice Boddy, University of Toronto North America: University of Wisconsin Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers

192 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 1999

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The articles collected in this volume are broadly concerned with sociologically analyzing spirit-possession practices across late twentieth-century Africa. These practices are contextualized as both products and contestations of continental and local histories, particularly the histories of encounters with the West, capitalism, slavery, and colonialism. In so doing, the essays comprise a sustained critique of theorists such as I. M. Lewis who have understood possession as primarily the oblique empowerment strategy of the socially marginalized. As the ethnographic descriptions considered here illustrate, while possession is indeed a medium through which social power is exercised, it does not express any single paradigm of power relations in every instance.