Ritual som former livet: åndebesettelse hjå Meru–talande folk i Arumeru, Tanzania
Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift June 27, 2025 Liv Haram
A young, unmarried Meru woman named Linda in northern Tanzania suffers long-term spirit possession. Rather than reducing her affliction to a strategy for a marginalized woman to advance her interests in a patriarchal society, the article argues that such instrumental explanations overlook the spirits' own agency in the ritual. Healing attempts culminate in a family confrontation where the central question becomes whether Linda is possessed or insane. The analysis focuses on the local concepts of the "clothed" (hidden) and the "unclothed" (revealed) to explore the ritual's inner dynamics and its capacity to produce real change in participants' social lives, especially for Linda.