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Social Science Cultural

Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte

Local Discourses of Islam, Sorcery and Spirit Possession

by (author) Michael Lambek

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Oct 1993
Category
Cultural, Customs & Traditions, General, Islamic Studies, Folklore & Mythology
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802077837
    Publish Date
    Oct 1993
    List Price
    $35.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442638617
    Publish Date
    Oct 1993
    List Price
    $39.95

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Description

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.

About the author

Michael Lambek holds a Canada Research Chair in Anthropology of Ethical Life at the University of Toronto and is the author of Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action (Fordham University Press, 2010) and The Ethical Condition: Essays on Action, Person, and Value (University of Chicago Press, 2015).

Michael Lambek's profile page