Abstract In West Africa, certain objects can act in the world and interact with people as subjects. Labeled “fetishes” by Europeans, these material things have generated centuries of debates on the nature of their agency. In this article, I rely on participant fieldwork as a student in a group of initiated donso hunters in Burkina Faso, which involved using my own fetishes as operator and other...
With its catchy title, historian Benjamin Breen's Tripping on Utopia brings together controversial findings about the human mind, social engineering, and professional responsibility.He delineates the time frame and focus of an inquiry into psychoactive drug research by stating that "Timothy Leary and the Baby Boomers did not usher in the first psychedelic era.They ended it" (3).The Controlled...
In the middle of Benjamin Tausig's (2019) Bangkok Is Ringing: Sound, Protest, and Constraint, amid the clamor of crowds protesting military suppression and the voices of those who would not be silenced, the narrative suddenly becomes quiet. Tausig focuses in on a man named Kittisak Janpeng (Diew) sitting silently among the protestors. He was protesting without words, a nonverbal reaction to...
Carrying the Word: The Concheros Dance in Mexico Susanna Rostas . Boulder : University Press of Colorado , 2009 . 303 pp. In spite of the growing popularity and visibility of Conchero dance in Mexico and beyond, the practice has received very little attention. The only other extensive treatment of the Conchero dance written in English is Martha Stone's At the Sign of Midnight: The Concheros...
Healing Powers and Modernity: Traditional Medicine, Shamanism, and Science in Asian Societies. Linda H. Connor and Geoffrey Samuel. eds. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 2001. 296 pp.
Shamanism: Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to the Mastery of Spirits and Healing. Merete Demant Jakobsen. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999. 274 pp.
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.
ABSTRACTS Recent studies have taught us that “religion” is not a fixed category but an instrument of popular consciousness. While the studies' subjects have often been victims of colonialism and capitalist exploitation, cultural production through magical means need not be restricted to a society's most oppressed elements. Counter to the expectations of Max Weber, for whom capitalism marched to...
The use of the psychedelic vine, ayahuasca (various Banisteriopsis species), in the Peruvian Amazon by mestizo folk healers is related to such variables as cultural expectations of drug experience and belief systems concerning illness. A subjective personal experience inherent in psychedelic use takes on cultural coloration, as determinants of hallucinatory experience show strong relationships...