Unavailable
Unavailable
Unavailable
Ebook535 pages6 hours
Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In 2011, Trinidad declared a state of emergency. This massive state intervention lasted for 108 days and led to the rounding up of over 7,000 people in areas the state deemed “crime hot spots.” The government justified this action and subsequent police violence on the grounds that these measures were restoring “the rule of law.” In this milieu of expanded policing powers, protests occasioned by police violence against lower-class black people have often garnered little sympathy. But in an improbable turn of events, six officers involved in the shooting of three young people were charged with murder at the height of the state of emergency. To explain this, the host of Crime Watch, the nation’s most popular television show, alleged that there must be a special power at work: obeah.
From eighteenth-century slave rebellions to contemporary responses to police brutality, Caribbean methods of problem-solving “spiritual work” have been criminalized under the label of “obeah.” Connected to a justice-making force, obeah remains a crime in many parts of the anglophone Caribbean. In Experiments with Power, J. Brent Crosson addresses the complex question of what obeah is. Redescribing obeah as “science” and “experiments,” Caribbean spiritual workers unsettle the moral and racial foundations of Western categories of religion. Based on more than a decade of conversations with spiritual workers during and after the state of emergency, this book shows how the reframing of religious practice as an experiment with power transforms conceptions of religion and law in modern nation-states.
From eighteenth-century slave rebellions to contemporary responses to police brutality, Caribbean methods of problem-solving “spiritual work” have been criminalized under the label of “obeah.” Connected to a justice-making force, obeah remains a crime in many parts of the anglophone Caribbean. In Experiments with Power, J. Brent Crosson addresses the complex question of what obeah is. Redescribing obeah as “science” and “experiments,” Caribbean spiritual workers unsettle the moral and racial foundations of Western categories of religion. Based on more than a decade of conversations with spiritual workers during and after the state of emergency, this book shows how the reframing of religious practice as an experiment with power transforms conceptions of religion and law in modern nation-states.
Unavailable
Related to Experiments with Power
Related ebooks
Hearing the Mermaid's Song: The Umbanda Religion in Rio de Janeiro Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsExperiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMysteries and Secrets of Voodoo, Santeria, and Obeah Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Governing Spirits: Religion, Miracles, and Spectacles in Cuba and Puerto Rico, 1898-1956 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpirits, Blood and Drums: The Orisha Religion in Trinidad Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nagô Grandma and White Papa: Candomblé and the Creation of Afro-Brazilian Identity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe African World in Dialogue: An Appeal to Action! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsObeah Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDivining the Self: A Study in Yoruba Myth and Human Consciousness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Working Juju: Representations of the Caribbean Fantastic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfro-Brazilian Numerology: Awakening Your Better Self with the Wisdom of the Orishas Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Folklore of the Negroes of Jamaica - With Notes on Obeah Worship Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yorùbá Culture: A Philosophical Account Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Obeah Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsManifestations of Masculine Magnificence: Divinity in Africana Life, Lyrics, and Literature Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Honey in the River: Shadow, Sex and West African Spirituality Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5SoulStirrers: Black Art and the Neo-Ancestral Impulse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMaterialities of Ritual in the Black Atlantic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTraditional Brazilian Black Magic: The Secrets of the Kimbanda Magicians Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5And the Shadows Wore Colors: Reflections of a Spiritualist Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5African Cowrie Shells Divination: History, Theory & Practice Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Vodún: Secrecy and the Search for Divine Power Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSacral Grooves, Limbo Gateways: Travels in Deep Southern Time, Circum-Caribbean Space, Afro-creole Authority Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoly Harlots: Femininity, Sexuality, and Black Magic in Brazil Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Obeahman's Dagger Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHY NAME IS VODUN: CONVERSATIONS WITH MAMIWATA PRIESTESS Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rara!: Vodou, Power, and Performance in Haiti and Its Diaspora Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bata Dancer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Anthropology For You
The Way of the Shaman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Body Language Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad---and Surprising Good---About Feeling Special Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Survive in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Regarding the Pain of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A History of the American People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bruce Lee Wisdom for the Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermined America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Chalice and the Blade: Our History, Our Future---Updated With a New Epilogue Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Trails: An Exploration Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Experiments with Power
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5
1 rating0 reviews