An anthropology of images in contemporary christian orthodox Ethiopia

Siena-Antonia De Ménonville

Description

Cet essai en langue anglaise a pour objet les producteurs d'images dans l'Éthiopie chrétienne orthodoxe contemporaine. Ce travail s'inscrit à la croisée de l'anthropologie de la religion, de l'image et de la morale, tout en analysant aussi les pratiques magico-thérapeutiques traditionnelles.

Sujets

• Christianisme
• Anthropologie
• Ethnologie
• Civilisation
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9782140126642
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

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Collana “Connessioni” Collection “Connections”

diretta da/ directed by /dirigée par R OBERTO B ENEDUCE , R OLAND L ITTLEWOOD , T ULLIO S EPPILLI (†) , C ARLO S EVERI , S IMONA T ALIANI

CORPI INDIVIDUALI E CONTESTI INTERCULTURALI Contributi sulla mediazione e la figura dei mediatori culturali aa.vv.

LAVORO, RIABILITAZIONE E LEGAME SOCIALE Simona Taliani (a cura)

MENTE, PERSONA, CULTURA Materiali di etnopsicologia Roberto Beneduce (a cura)

SAPERI, LINGUAGGI E TECNICHE NEI SISTEMI DI CURA TRADIZIONALI Roberto Beneduce (a cura)

UN RIFUGIO DALL’ESCLUSIONE L’accoglienza non istituzionale dei richiedenti asilo a Torino Alex Vailati (a cura)

S IENA -A NTONIA DE M ÉNONVILLE

AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF IMAGES IN CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX ETHIOPIA

L’Harmattan Italia via Degli Artisti 15 10124 Torino

Foreword Erwan Dianteill

L’Harmattan 5-7 rue de L’École Polytechnique 75005 Paris

For Mathieu and Lily Faye

www.editions-harmattan.fr

[e-mail]

© L’Harmattan Italia / L’Harmattan, Torino / Paris, 2019

ISBN (ITALY) 978-88-7892-366-9 ISBN (FRANCE) 978-2-336-31858-5

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Table of Contents

FOREWORD,Erwan Dianteill

ACKNOW

L

EDGE

ME

NT

S

TRANSLITERATION AND MAPS

INTRODUCTION THE ETHIOPIAN CONTEXT METHODOLOGY

PART ONE WHAT IS AN IMAGE-PRODUCER? INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I THE EOTC AND THEIR IMAGES

CHAPTER II METSÏHAFAWI: TEXTUAL PRACTICES IN AND AROUND THE EOTC

CHAPTER III TALISMANIC PRACTICES: “TRANSGRESSIVE” IMAGE-PRODUCERS

PART TWO WHAT DOES AN IMAGE-PRODUCER DO? INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I SICKNESS AND HEALING

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1

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3

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3

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155

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CHAPTER II KNOWLEDGE, DANGER AND POWER

CHAPTER III TREATING EMOTIONS

PART THREE HOW IS IMAGE PRODUCTION PERCEIVED? INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I SIN AS EXCESS

CHAPTER II MONEY POLLUTION

CHAPTER III FILTH

CONCLUSIONS

NOT

GL

E

S

OSSARY

ANNE

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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FOREWORD

E RWAN D IANTEILL

[Department director of the Social Sciences at the Faculté des Sciences Humaines et Sociales Descartes. Senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France]

This book deals with a very original subject, namely the moral ambivalence of religious image production in Ethiopia today, within and on the margins of the EthiopianTewahedo Orthodox Church (EOTC). The book has an obvious interest for specialists in Ethiopia, however its scope goes far beyond, as it elicits the relationship between art and magic. It is grounded on rigorous and original research, based on in- depth fieldwork, but also on a knowledge of ethnological reflection of religion, aesthetics and morality. As early as 1905, Mauss and Hubert recommended studying magiciansbeforestudying magic itself in order to escape the intellectualist bias of British anthropology of the th 19 century, which was mainly interested in the psychological process of magical thought. Siena de Ménonville takes a Maussian approach here: Who are the official EOTC painters? Who are thedebtera? One of the most interesting results of this line of questioning is that there is often porosity between categories of image pro- ducers; for example, thedebteraZewdu paints holy images, inside the EOTC framework, inspired by the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, but he also replicates nude women in his studio to decorate nightclubs. Similarly, thedebteracan manufacturetelsem(talismans) for protection and for aggres- sion. Siena de Ménonville shows very well thatdebteraare bearers of sacred Church knowledgebut alsoof transgressive

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images — which obviously implies the existence of a stan- dard to be transgressed — whose symbolic effectiveness is the product of the agency of the clergy, clients and magicians. This book contains a remarkable reflection on the use (moral or immoral) of the Ethiopian talisman. What is the talisman used for? The fields of application of talismans are typically those of healing and protection, but the purpose of these texts and painted representations also responds to, using Ménonville’s term, “socially reprehensible emotions”: hatred, jealousy, sexual desire, greed, revenge. In this case, the emotional “badness” which give the talisman their func- tion is condemned by the Church, but that does not prevent thedebterafrom taking financial advantage of these socially dangerous emotions by selling their knowledge. At the same time, it should be noted that the content of the talismans is related to the Bible, since the reference to King Solomon and the Gospel is constant in these documents. It is therefore dif- ficult, if not impossible, to think of talismanic production outside the monotheistic tradition, and specifically outside Christian theology. We can therefore see that the production of “illicit” images has an organic relationship with the doc- trine of the Church; the former would not exist without the latter. Even more surprisingly, far from really fighting against their practices, it seems that the Church maintains a form of systemic relationship with thedebtera. In other words, the official clergy seems also to need the magician painters. This is the idea developed by Siena de Ménonville in the last part of this book. What is the social identity of thedebtera? If the beginning of this book is rather Maussian, the last part is rather Durkheimian: Siena de Ménonville builds an anthropology of Ethiopian imagre production conceived as a moral fact, in the sense given by Durkheim to this expression in his first work, De la division du travail social.

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Siena de Ménonville obviously does not confine herself to the epistemology of 1893, and the theoretical elaboration is also inspired by the work of Didier Fassin and Bruno Karsenti.Debterahave morally reprehensible practices, but paradoxically they assume a complementary role to that of EOTC clerics and producers of holy images. They occupy a marginal but nevertheless recognized place in the religious space: by taking charge of reprehensible emotions, the debteraprovide a liminal space for their expression and cir- cumvent leaving them uncontrolled, or worse, feeding extra- ecclesial “paganism”. This double game of thedebtera,in and out of the Church, i.e. precisely at the margins, allows the Church to contain anti- social impulses. This is a very interesting neo-Durkheimian conclusion, the relevance of which could be measured against many other fields. Looking at the Muslim world, spiritual guides and religious healers often coexist. In West Africa, for example, Muslim saints and marabouts coexist, the latter not being outside Islam, but rather incorporated into a wide circle of more or less lawful practices, a blurred zone between what is prescribed and what is prohibited. In conclusion, this is an insightful book that makes a very significant contribution to the knowledge of contemporary Ethiopia, but which will also stimulate comparative develop- ments of the highest interest at the intersection of the anthro- pology of religion, magic and images.

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