In The Weight of the Past, Michael Lambek explores the complex ways that history shapes, constrains, and enables daily life. Focusing on ritual performances of spirit mediumship in a multifaceted religious landscape, Lambek's analysis reveals the multiple ways that Sakalava "bear" history. In Mahajanga, Madagascar, to bear history is at once a weighty obligation, a creative re-birthing, a scrupulous cultivation, and an exuberant performance of the past.This book describes the division of labor, creative production, and ethical practice entailed in imagining, embodying, and serving the past. It is at once a vivid ethnography of Sakalava life and a significant intervention in anthropological debates on culture and history, structure and practice, advocating a theoretical approach informed by Aristotelian categories of understanding.
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Editorial Reviews
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"Michael Lambek's inspired analysis draws on classic conceptions from authors such as Aristotle and Mauss to illuminate the making of a social world. This is not an antiquarian study: the cult of Sakalava royalty may contradict the conditions of modern life in theory, but co-exists with them in practice. This major work will reshape the debates between anthropology and history."
--Wendy James, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University
"Lambek's tour de force needs to be read by every Africanist. Guiding us through a maze of royal wonders, great centers and their peripheries, controversial relics and their devotions, modes of homage, care and respect, Lambek offers the crowning accomplishment in his path-finding studies of mediums and spirit possession."
--Richard Werbner, Professor of African Anthropology, University of Manchester
"In this theoretically innovative, moving and evocative book, Michael Lambek introduces us to the world of Sakalava historicity. This brilliant account of the embodied conscience of history addresses questions of power and practice, ethics and agency, while keeping the reader consistently engaged with the lived reality of contemporary Madagascar."
--Megan Vaughan, Professor of Commonwealth Studies, University of Oxford
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
--Wendy James, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University
"Lambek's tour de force needs to be read by every Africanist. Guiding us through a maze of royal wonders, great centers and their peripheries, controversial relics and their devotions, modes of homage, care and respect, Lambek offers the crowning accomplishment in his path-finding studies of mediums and spirit possession."
--Richard Werbner, Professor of African Anthropology, University of Manchester
"In this theoretically innovative, moving and evocative book, Michael Lambek introduces us to the world of Sakalava historicity. This brilliant account of the embodied conscience of history addresses questions of power and practice, ethics and agency, while keeping the reader consistently engaged with the lived reality of contemporary Madagascar."
--Megan Vaughan, Professor of Commonwealth Studies, University of Oxford
About the Author
Michael Lambek is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Human Spirits: A Cultural Account of Trance in Mayotte.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
At the climax of the "Great Service," the annual ritual of political and cosmic renewal in Mahajanga, a procession emerges from the inner sanctum and circumambulates the temple. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
shrine managers, shrine servants, senior medium, wet kaolin, senior spirits, junior spirits, most senior ancestors, shrine residents, living royalty, royal descent group, ancestral personages, sacred potency, active possession, living monarchs, royal factions, blood gate, tomb guardians, ancestral system, tomb enclosures, ancestral relics, shrine village, shrine officials, living rulers, ancestral order, living royals Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mme Doso, Great Service, Ancestor People, Great Woman, Doany Ndramisara, Ampanjaka Amina, Amana Ibrahim, The Play of the Past, Ampanjaka Soazara, Distributive Memory, Popular Performances, Mine Doso, The Legacy of Lord Diviner, Dadilahy Kassim, Ancestor Person, Doany Miarinarivo, Kassim's Burden, Maolida Kely, Ampanjaka Moandjy, Loza River, President Ratsiraka, South Asians, None of Kassim, Nosy Lava New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
At the climax of the "Great Service," the annual ritual of political and cosmic renewal in Mahajanga, a procession emerges from the inner sanctum and circumambulates the temple. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
shrine managers, shrine servants, senior medium, wet kaolin, senior spirits, junior spirits, most senior ancestors, shrine residents, living royalty, royal descent group, ancestral personages, sacred potency, active possession, living monarchs, royal factions, blood gate, tomb guardians, ancestral system, tomb enclosures, ancestral relics, shrine village, shrine officials, living rulers, ancestral order, living royals Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Mme Doso, Great Service, Ancestor People, Great Woman, Doany Ndramisara, Ampanjaka Amina, Amana Ibrahim, The Play of the Past, Ampanjaka Soazara, Distributive Memory, Popular Performances, Mine Doso, The Legacy of Lord Diviner, Dadilahy Kassim, Ancestor Person, Doany Miarinarivo, Kassim's Burden, Maolida Kely, Ampanjaka Moandjy, Loza River, President Ratsiraka, South Asians, None of Kassim, Nosy Lava New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 88
books:
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9
books
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- Ancestors, Power and History in Madagascar (Studies of Religion in Africa) by Karen Middleton on 4 pages
- Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory by Paul Antze in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Time and Narrative, Volume 1 (Time & Narrative) by Paul Ricoeur in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- RL E: Anthropology and Ethnography: Spirit Mediumship and Society in Africa (Routledge Library Editions: Anthropology and Ethnography) by John Beattie in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (University of Texas Press Slavic Series) by M.M. Bakhtin in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 88 books this book cites
- Empowering the Past, Confronting the Future: The Duna People of Papua New Guinea (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion) by Pamela Stewart in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Empowering the Past, Confronting the Future: The Duna People of Papua New Guinea (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion) by Pamela Stewart in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- The Ceremonial Animal: A New Portrait of Anthropology by Wendy James in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Islam Obscured: The Rhetoric of Anthropological Representation (Contemporary Anthropology of Religion) by Daniel Varisco in Front Matter
- Slavery and Resistance in Africa and Asia: Bonds of Resistance by Edward A. Alpers in Front Matter
See all 9 books citing this book
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