4 papers in the library · 71 citations · publishing 1994-1997
American Anthropologist March 1, 1997 Lesley A. Sharp
Spirit Possession and Personhood among the Kel Ewey Tuareg. Susan J. Rasmussen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 178 pp.Embodying Colonial Memories: Spirit Possession, Power, and the Hauka in West Africa. Paul StoIIer. New York: Routledge, 1995. 226 pp.
January 6, 1994 Lesley A. Sharp
This chapter discusses the themes of women, migration, and power in relation to spirit possession and identity in northwest Madagascar. The setting is Ambanja, a booming migrant town in the heart of a prosperous plantation region called the Sambirano Valley, where identity is shaped by polyculturalism and manipulated through religious experience. Healing rituals, involving possession by...
January 6, 1994 Lesley A. Sharp
This chapter discusses an alternative form of healing offered by an unusual group of vahiny in northwest Madagascar. Protestantism and exorcists serve as a final option in a locally conceived hierarchy of resort, especially for problems associated with spirit possession and madness. A wide array of indigenous practitioners (including tromba, kalanoro, moasy, mpisikidy) play key roles in...
Anthropologica 1994 Adeline Masquelier, Lesley A. Sharp 71 citations
This finely drawn portrait of a complex, polycultural urban community in Madagascar emphasizes the role of spirit medium healers, a group heretofore seen as having little power. These women, Leslie Sharp argues, are far from powerless among the peasants and migrant laborers who work the land in this plantation economy. In fact, Sharp's wide-ranging analysis shows that tromba, or spirit...