Prayer Has Spoiled Everything

Masquelier Adeline Masquelier

Description

Bori, in the Mawri society of Niger, are mischievous and invisible beings that populate the bush. Bori is also the practice of taming these wild forces in the context of possession ceremonies. In Prayer Has Spoiled Everything Adeline Masquelier offers an account of how this phenomenon intervenes-sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically-in human lives, providing a constantly renewed source of meaning for Mawri peasants confronted with cultural contradictions and socio-economic marginalization.To explore the role of bori possession in local definitions of history, power, and identity, Masquelier spent a total of two years in Niger, focusing on the diverse ways in which spirit mediums share, transform, and contest a rapidly changing reality, threatened by Muslim hegemony and financial hardship. She explains how the spread of Islam has provoked irreversible change in the area and how prayer-a conspicuous element of daily life that has become virtually synonymous with Islamic practice in this region of west Africa-has thus become equated with the loss of tradition. By focusing on some of the creative and complex ways that bori at once competes with and borrows from Islam, Masquelier reveals how possession nonetheless remains deeply embedded in Mawri culture, representing more than simple resistance to Islam, patriarchy, or the state. Despite a widening gap between former ways of life and the contradictions of the present, it maintains its place as a feature of daily life in which villagers participate with varying degrees of enthusiasm and approval.Specialists in African studies, in the anthropology of religion, and in the historical transformations of colonial and postcolonial societies will welcome this study.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Níger
• Islamic studies
• Anthropology
• Niger
• Islam

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 26 mars 2001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822380559
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Prayer Has Spoiled Everything

, , 

Studies of Objectifying Practice

A series edited by

Arjun Appadurai,

Jean Comaroff, and

Judith Farquhar

rayer Has Spoiled

verything

, , 

      

Adeline Masquelier

  

  



©  Duke University Press

All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper  Designed by C. H. Westmoreland

Typeset in Bembo by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

appear on the last printed page of this book.

For Margaux, Eléonore, and Julia

In the hope that it will inspire them to do their best while always keeping a sense of humor and perspective, I dedicate this book to them.

There is no place that is not haunted

by many different spirits hidden there in silence, spirits one can

‘‘invoke’’ or not. Haunted places are the only ones

people can live in.

Michel de Certeau,The Practice of Everyday Life

ontents

List of Illustrationsxi Acknowledgmentsxiii List of Termsxvii

Introduction 

Bori,Power, and Identity in Dogondoutchi 

 Lost Rituals: Changing Topographies of Spirit/Human Interactions 

 Socializing the Spirits



 The Everyday Life ofBori:Knowledge, Embodiment, and Quotidian Practice 

 Kinesthetic Appropriation and Embodied Knowledge: BabouleSpirits and the Making of Value

 Taking Hold of theKasuwa:The Ritual Economy ofBoriin the Market 

 The Mirrors of Maria: Sweetness, Sexuality, and Dangerous Consumption 

 Lightning, Death, and the Politics of Truth: The Spirits of Rain 

Conclusion: Continuities and Discontinuities inBori

Notes Bibliography Index



