Details

Subject(s)

• Sakalava (Malagasy people)—Rites and ceremonies [Browse]
• Sakalava (Malagasy people)—Religion [Browse]
• Sakalava (Malagasy people)—Social conditions [Browse]
• Spirit possession—Madagascar—Ambanja [Browse]
• Ancestor worship—Madagascar—Ambanja [Browse]
• Ambanja (Madagascar)—Religious life and customs [Browse]

Series

• Comparative studies of health systems and medical care ; no. 37. [More in this series]
• Comparative studies of health systems and medical care ; no. 37 [More in this series]

Summary note

This portrait of a complex, polycultural urban community in Madagascar emphasizes the role of spirit medium healers, a group previously 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.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-337) and index.

Reproduction note

Electronic reproduction. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Contents

• 1. Introduction: Possession, Identity, and Power: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations
• Critical Approaches to the Study of Affliction
• Investigating Possession: Social Change, Marginality, and Religious Experience
• Logic and Methods of Inquiry
• pt. I. Historic, Political-Economic, and Social Levels of Experience
• 2. Political Economy of the Sambirano
• Ambanja, a Plantation Community
• Economic and Political History of the Region
• Local Power and Reactions to Colonialism
• 3. National and Local Factions: The Nature of Polyculturalism in Ambanja
• National Factions: Regionalism and Cultural Stereotypes
• Social and Cultural Divisions in Ambanja
• Effects of Polyculturalism
• 4. Tera-Tany and Vahiny: Insiders and Outsiders
• Migrant Stories
• Patterns of Association and Means for Incorporation
• pt. II. Spirit Possession in the Sambirano
• 5. World of the Spirits
• ^ Dynamics of Tromba in Daily Life
• Possession Experience
• Other Members of the Spirit World
• 6. Sacred Knowledge and Local Power: Tromba and the Sambirano Economy
• Tromba as Ethnohistory
• Tromba, Wage Labor, and Economic Independence
• Tromba and Collective Power in the Sambirano
• 7. Spirit Mediumship and Social Identity
• Selfhood and Personhood in the Context of Possession
• Turning Outsiders into Insiders: Mediums' Social Networks and Personal Relationships
• Miasa ny Tromba: Mediumship as Work
• pt. III. Conflicts of Town Life
• 8. Problems and Conflicts of Town Life: The Adult World
• Malagasy Concepts of Healing
• Sickness and Death
• Work and Success
• Love and Money, Wives and Mistresses
• 9. Social World of Children
• Possessed Youth of Ambanja
• Disorder of a Fragmented World
• Children and Social Change
• 10. Exorcising the Spirits: The Alternative Therapeutics of Protestantism
• Sakalava Perceptions of Possession and Madness.

Show 38 more Contents items

ISBN

• 0520080017 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
• 9780520080010 ((cloth ; : alk. paper))
• 9780520918450
• 0520918452
• 0585276803
• 9780585276809

LCCN

92037296

OCLC

214504648

Statement on language in description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...