Where Humans and Spirits Meet

by Larsen, Kjersti

• ISBN13: 9781845450557
• ISBN10: 1845450558
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-05-20
• Publisher: Berghahn Books

Summary

Zanzibar, an island off the East African coast, with its Muslim and Swahili population, offers rich material for this study of identity, religion, and multiculturalism. This book focuses on the phenomenon of spirit possession in Zanzibar Town and the relationships created between humans and spirits; it provides a way to apprehend how society is constituted and conceived and, thus, discusses Zanzibari understandings of what it means to be human. Kjersti Larsenis Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and African Studies at the Department of Ethnography, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. She has carried out fieldwork in Zanzibar since 1984 and since 1997 has also conducted fieldwork in Northern Sudan.

Author Biography

Kjersti Larsen is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and African Studies at the Department of Ethnography, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo.

Table of Contents

Map of the Western Indian Ocean
Introduction	p. 1
Introduction to Zanzibar : the place, its politics and organization	p. 25
Spirits, possession and personhood	p. 42
Makabila, people and spirits	p. 60
Human concerns, spirits and recreation of relationships	p. 81
Between self and other : body and mind	p. 95
Gender : relations, markers and sexuality	p. 109
Women, men and gendered spirits	p. 123
Conclusion : social identities and dramatization of the other	p. 145
Glossary	p. 158
Bibliography	p. 163
Index	p. 171
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