ISBN: 9789089642981

Ecstatic Encounters takes its readers to the threshold of Candomblé temples in Bahia, Brazil, where ? for many generations -- members of this spirit-possession cult and curious outsiders … Mehr…

Ecstatic Encounters takes its readers to the threshold of Candomblé temples in Bahia, Brazil, where ? for many generations -- members of this spirit-possession cult and curious outsiders have been meeting to marvel at each other's otherness. Having allowed himself to be baffled by Candomblé's mysteries and miracle productions, the author explores the notion of ?the-rest-of-what-is': the excess that is the inevitable by-product of all reality definitions; the non-sensical that is the surplus of all culturally informed sense-making. Ethnographical insights in Afro-Brazilian mysticism are thus made to speak to anthropological forms of world-making, in a study that rejects the totalizing pretensions of all reality definitions, emphatically including those of academia. The theoretical importance of this book lies in its critical assessment of the constructivist paradigm that long dominates cultural and social anthropology. Adopting the Lacanian premise that the meaningful worlds we inhabit are lacking, and depend on fantasy and make-belief to be perceived as coherent, persuasive and incontestable, this study argues that the analysis of cultural forms should always include an exploration of the processes of cultural enchantment that endow man-made worlds of meaning with a sense of the really real. Ecstatic Encounters is written in an accessible, engaging, literary style. Philosophical issues are taken out on the streets, to be pondered in the face of everyday life; just as mundane dimensions of being are allowed to soil the conventional proprieties of academic text production. Books<

ISBN: 9789089642981

Ecstatic Encounters takes its readers to the threshold of Candomblé temples in Bahia, Brazil, where ? for many generations -- members of this spirit-possession cult and curious outsiders … Mehr…

Ecstatic Encounters takes its readers to the threshold of Candomblé temples in Bahia, Brazil, where ? for many generations -- members of this spirit-possession cult and curious outsiders have been meeting to marvel at each other's otherness. Having allowed himself to be baffled by Candomblé's mysteries and miracle productions, the author explores the notion of ?the-rest-of-what-is': the excess that is the inevitable by-product of all reality definitions; the non-sensical that is the surplus of all culturally informed sense-making. Ethnographical insights in Afro-Brazilian mysticism are thus made to speak to anthropological forms of world-making, in a study that rejects the totalizing pretensions of all reality definitions, emphatically including those of academia. The theoretical importance of this book lies in its critical assessment of the constructivist paradigm that long dominates cultural and social anthropology. Adopting the Lacanian premise that the meaningful worlds we inhabit are lacking, and depend on fantasy and make-belief to be perceived as coherent, persuasive and incontestable, this study argues that the analysis of cultural forms should always include an exploration of the processes of cultural enchantment that endow man-made worlds of meaning with a sense of the really real.Ecstatic Encounters is written in an accessible, engaging, literary style. Philosophical issues are taken out on the streets, to be pondered in the face of everyday life; just as mundane dimensions of being are allowed to soil the conventional proprieties of academic text production. Books<

ISBN: 9789089642981

300 Seiten, "Reality does not comply with our narrations of it. And that is most certainly the case with the narrations produced in academia. An anthropologist in Bahia, Brazil, fears to … Mehr…

300 Seiten, "Reality does not comply with our narrations of it. And that is most certainly the case with the narrations produced in academia. An anthropologist in Bahia, Brazil, fears to become possessed by the spirits he had come to study; falls madly in love withan 'informant'; finds himself baffled by the sayings of a clairvoyant; and has to come to grips with the murder of one of his best friends. Unsettling events that do not belong to the orderly world of scientific research, yet leave their imprint on the way the anthropologist comes to understand the world. REflecting on his long research experience with the spirit possession cult Candomblâe, the author shows, in a probing manner, how definitions of reality always require the exclusion of certain perceptions, experiences and insights. And yet, this 'rest-of-what-is' turns out to be an inexhaustible source of amazement, seduction and renewal." --P [4] of cover. Social Science, Amsterdam University Press<

2011, ISBN: 9789089642981

Bahian Candomble and the Quest for the Really Real, Buch, Softcover, [PU: Amsterdam University Press], Amsterdam University Press, 2011