Wombs and Alien Spirits

Wombs and Alien Spirits
Author :
Publisher : Univ of Wisconsin Press
Total Pages : 425
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780299123130
ISBN-13 : 0299123138
Rating : 4/5 (138 Downloads)

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 Related Books

Wombs and Alien Spirits
Language: en
Pages: 425
Authors: Janice Boddy
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 1989-12-01 - Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

GET EBOOK

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 pract
Spirit Possession, Modernity & Power in Africa
Language: en
Pages: 198
Authors: Heike Behrend
Categories: Body, Mind & Spirit
Type: BOOK - Published: 1999 - Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

GET EBOOK

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
Civilizing Women
Language: en
Pages: 433
Authors: Janice Boddy
Categories: Social Science
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018-06-05 - Publisher: Princeton University Press

GET EBOOK

Civilizing Women is a riveting exploration of the disparate worlds of British colonial officers and the Muslim Sudanese they sought to remake into modern imperi
Embodying Honor
Language: en
Pages: 240
Authors: Amal Fadlalla
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-09-21 - Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

GET EBOOK

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 bear
The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality
Language: en
Pages: 624
Authors: Vasudha Narayanan
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2020-04-16 - Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

GET EBOOK

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality provides a thoughtfully organized, inclusive, and vibrant project of the multiple ways in which religi