Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte : : Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery and Spirit Possession / / Michael Lambek.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Lambek, Michael,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Anthropological Horizons
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (498 p.)
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Tables and Figures --; Preface --; Stylistic Conventions and Conundrums --; Dramatis Personae --; Part I: Introductions --; 1. Knowledge and Hubris --; 2. Locating Knowledge in Mayotte: Structure, History, and Practice --; 3. Village Organization and the Distribution of Knowledge --; Part II: The Social Organization of Textual Knowledge --; 4. Islam: The Perspective from the Path --; 5. Educating Citizens: The Reproduction of Textual Knowledge --; 6. Islamic Experts: Practice and Power --; Part III. Counterpractices: Cosmology and the Ins and Outs of Sorcery --; 7. Knowledge with Power: The Discipline of Cosmology --; 8. Knowledge and Antipractice: Committing Sorcery --; 9. Removing Sorcery: Committing (to) the Cure --; Part IV. Embodied Knowledge and the Practice of Spirit Mediums --; 10. The Reproduction of Possession: Gaining a Voice --; 11. Tumbu and Mohedja: Excerpts from the Healers' Practice --; 12. Granaries, Turtles, and the Whole Damn Thing --; Epilogue, 1992 --; Notes --; A Short Glossary of Words Commonly Used in the Text --; Bibliography --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781442676534; 9783110490947
• DOI: 10.3138/9781442676534
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Michael Lambek.

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.