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Possession, a seemingly irrational phenomenon, has posed challenges
to generations of scholars rooted in Western notions of body-soul
dualism, self and personhood, and a whole set of presuppositions
inherited from Christian models of possession that was "good" or
"bad." The authors of the essays in this book present a new and
more promising approach. They conceive spirit possession as a form
of communication, of expressivity, of culturally defined behavior
that should be understood in the context of local, vernacular
theories and empiric reflections. With the aim of reformulating the
comparative anthropology of spirit possession, the editors have
opened corridors between previously separate areas of research.
Together, anthropologists and historians working on several
historical periods and in different European, African, South
American, and Asian cultural areas attempt to redefine the very
concept of possession, freeing it from the Western notion of the
self and more clearly delineating it from related matters such as
witchcraft, devotion, or mysticism. The book also provides an
overview of new research directions, including novel methods of
participant observation and approaches to spirit possession as
indigenous historiography
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