Cord Of Blood: Possession and the Making of Voodoo (Anthropology, Culture and Society)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 160 pages
• Published by: Pluto Press November 20, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 074531841X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0745318417
• Book Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Weighs: 8.8 ounces

Product Description
The relationship between human beings and their gods lies at the centre of all questions of identity, individual and collective. Nadia Lovell looks at how religious feelings reflect notions of personhood and belonging, and how religious involvement can transform gender relations, by focusing on cults of Vodhun (voodoo) possession among the Watchi in Southern Togo. Using this detailed ethnographic study as a point of departure she offers an insight into the complex interplay between religion, gender, ethnography and globalization. Lovell argues that the relationship of men and women to the Vodhun is one of mutual dependency: on the one hand human beings will gods to exist; on the other, gods embody themselves in human beings, especially women, through possession. Possession, according to Lovell, implies not only affliction, but the manifestation of creative potential through which women can express multiple identities - a process through which concepts of gender are both confirmed and dismantled.

About The Author
Nadia Lovell lectures in social anthropology at the University of Linkoping, Sweden.