Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte
Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery and Spirit Possession
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
- Initial publish date
- Oct 1993
- Category
- Cultural, Customs & Traditions, General, Islamic Studies, Folklore & Mythology
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780802077837
- Publish Date
- Oct 1993
- List Price
- $35.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781442638617
- Publish Date
- Oct 1993
- List Price
- $39.95
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Description
On the East African island of Mayotte, Islam co-exists with two other systems of understanding and interpreting the world around its inhabitants: cosmology and spirit-mediumship. In a witty, evocative style accessible to both the specialist and non-specialist reader, Michael Lambek provides a significant contribution to writing on African systems of thought, on local forms of religious and therapeutic practice, on social accountability, and on the place of explicit forms of knowledge in the analysis of non-western societies.
The "objectified" textual knowledge characteristic of Islam and of cosmology is contrasted with the "embodied" knowledge of spirit possession. Lambek emphasizes the power and authority constituted by each discipline, as well as the challenge that each kind of knowledge presents to the others and their resolution in daily practice. "Disciplines" are defined as an organized body of practitioners or adepts, a concept precise and useful when applied to the contexts of Lambek's own research and equally so in the study of comparable environments elsewhere.
Essential reading for those interested in the comparative study of Islamic societies, Lambek's argument directly contributes to the main anthropological arguments of the day concerning the social and cultural basis of systems of knowledge and ethnographic strategies for depicting them.
About the author
Michael Lambek holds a Canada Research Chair in Anthropology of Ethical Life at the University of Toronto and is the author of Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action (Fordham University Press, 2010) and The Ethical Condition: Essays on Action, Person, and Value (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
Other titles by
Behind the Glass
The Villa Tugendhat and Its Family
Gestures
The Study of Religion as Practice
Concepts and Persons
Living with Concepts
Anthropology in the Grip of Reality
Island in the Stream
An Ethnographic History of Mayotte
Island in the Stream
An Ethnographic History of Mayotte
Ordinary Ethics
Anthropology, Language, and Action