Description
Book SynopsisThis collection looks at Caribbean religious history from the late 18th century to the present including obeah, vodou, santeria, candomble, and brujeria. The contributors examine how these religions have been affected by many forces including colonialism, law, race, gender, class, state power, media represenation, and the academy.
Trade Review“
Obeah and Other Powers is an excellent and welcome contribution to scholarship on Caribbean religions. Too few works explicitly address the three themes taken up in this collection, the significance of state power in shaping the environment in which Caribbean religions were practiced, the role of practitioners in shaping their religious traditions, and the role of mobility and the permeability of borders in shaping the definition and interpretation of obeah, Vodou, Santería, and Candomblé. This last premise enables the contributors to analyze these religions in conjunction with one another and as overlapping, rather than separate, phenomena.”—
Aisha Khan, author of
Callaloo Nation: Metaphors of Race and Religious Identity among South Asians in Trinidad"The contributors to this outstanding collection share the refreshing ambition to historicize local knowledge and to embrace the opacity and persisting mystique of Caribbean spiritual realities—from the colonial occult to enchanted modernities."—
Richard Price, author of
Travels with Tooy and
Rainforest Warriors“Each and every chapter of
Obeah and Other Powers is a gem in its own right, and yet this splendid collection is also much more than simply the sum of its parts. Indeed, the volume achieves an impressive level of sophistication in Caribbeanist historical anthropology and Black Atlantic religious studies, and its release — along with the publication of Jerome Handler and Kenneth Bilby’s
Enacting Power — makes 2012 something of a watershed moment in the study of the dynamic and rather unruly set of spiritual beliefs and ritual practices so often glossed as obeah in Afro- Atlantic studies.” -- Keith E. McNeal * Hispanic American Historical Review *
“A clear introduction and the well-developed, carefully composed chapters redeem the book…. [T]he book offers a great deal. Smith’s chapter would be a welcome addition to a gender and women’s studies classroom. Likewise, Savage’s contribution would work well in a history of medicine course. Putnam’s essay is required reading for students interested in Atlantic history. Finally, Richman’s chapter would fit well in a religious studies course.” -- Karol K. Weaver * Bulletin of the History of Medicine *
“In bringing together such a strong group of scholars to consider the production and reproduction of Caribbean ritual, spiritual practices, Paton and Forde have made a significant contribution to advancing scholarly understanding of this important subject and indeed to Caribbean history and studies more generally." -- Juanita De Barros * Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History *
“
Obeah and Other Powers… is likely to stimulate much interest and debate as scholars continue the difficult task of sifting through hostile representations of Caribbean religious beliefs and practices to better understand those beliefs and practices on their own terms.” -- Randy M. Browne * History: Reviews of New Books *
Table of ContentsForeword / Erna Brodber ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction / Maarit Forde and Diana Paton 1
Part I. Powers of Representation
1. An (Un)natural Mystic in the Air: Images of Obeah in Caribbean Song / Kenneth Bilby 45
2. "Eh! eh! Bomba, hen! hen!": Making Sense of a Vodou Chant / Alasdair Pettinger 80
3. On Swelling: Slavery, Social Science, and Medicine in the Nineteenth Century / Alejandra Bronfman 103
4. Atis Rezistans: Gede and the Art of Vagabondaj / Katherine Smith 121
Part II. Modernity and Tradition in the Making
5. Slave Poison / Slave Medicine: The Persistence of Obeah in Early Nineteenth-Century Martinique / John Savage 149
6. The Trials of Inspector Thomas: Policing and Ethnography in Jamaica / Diana Paton 172
7. The Moral Economy of Spiritual Work: Money and Rituals in Trinidad and Tobago / Maarit Forde 198
8. The Open Secrets of Solares / Elizabeth Cooper 220
Part III. Powers on the Move
9. Rites of Power and Rumors of Race: The Circulation of Supernatural Knowledge in the Greater Caribbean, 1890–1940 / Lara Putnam 243
10. The Vodou State and the Protestant Nation: Haiti in the Long Twentieth Century / Karen Richman 268
11. The Moral Economy of Brujería under the Modern Colony: A Pirated Modernity? / Raquel Romberg 288
Afterword. Other Powers: Tylor's Principle, Father Williams's Temptations, and the Power of Banality / Stephan Palmíe 316
Contributors 341
Index 345
