Animism in Southeast Asia

Animism in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Kaj Arhem
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317336623
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Animism refers to ontologies or worldviews which assign agency and personhood to human and non-human beings alike. Recent years have seen a revival of this concept in anthropology, where it is now discussed as an alternative to modern-Western naturalistic notions of human-environment relations. Based on original fieldwork, this book presents a number of case studies of animism from insular and peninsular Southeast Asia and offers a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon – its diversity and underlying commonalities and its resilience in the face of powerful forces of change. Critically engaging with the current standard notion of animism, based on hunter-gatherer and horticulturalist societies in other regions, it examines the roles of life forces, souls and spirits in local cosmologies and indigenous religion. It proposes an expansion of the concept to societies featuring mixed farming, sacrifice and hierarchy and explores the question of how non-human agents are created through acts of attention and communication, touching upon the relationship between animist ontologies, world religion, and the state. Shedding new light on Southeast Asian religious ethnographic research, the book is a significant contribution to anthropological theory and the revitalization of the concept of animism in the humanities and social sciences.

Animism in Southeast Asia

Animism in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Kaj Arhem
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317336623
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
Animism refers to ontologies or worldviews which assign agency and personhood to human and non-human beings alike. Recent years have seen a revival of this concept in anthropology, where it is now discussed as an alternative to modern-Western naturalistic notions of human-environment relations. Based on original fieldwork, this book presents a number of case studies of animism from insular and peninsular Southeast Asia and offers a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon – its diversity and underlying commonalities and its resilience in the face of powerful forces of change. Critically engaging with the current standard notion of animism, based on hunter-gatherer and horticulturalist societies in other regions, it examines the roles of life forces, souls and spirits in local cosmologies and indigenous religion. It proposes an expansion of the concept to societies featuring mixed farming, sacrifice and hierarchy and explores the question of how non-human agents are created through acts of attention and communication, touching upon the relationship between animist ontologies, world religion, and the state. Shedding new light on Southeast Asian religious ethnographic research, the book is a significant contribution to anthropological theory and the revitalization of the concept of animism in the humanities and social sciences.

Animism in Southeast Asia

Animism in Southeast Asia PDF Author: Kaj Arhem
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317336615
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Animism refers to ontologies or worldviews which assign agency and personhood to human and non-human beings alike. Recent years have seen a revival of this concept in anthropology, where it is now discussed as an alternative to modern-Western naturalistic notions of human-environment relations. Based on original fieldwork, this book presents a number of case studies of animism from insular and peninsular Southeast Asia and offers a comprehensive overview of the phenomenon – its diversity and underlying commonalities and its resilience in the face of powerful forces of change. Critically engaging with the current standard notion of animism, based on hunter-gatherer and horticulturalist societies in other regions, it examines the roles of life forces, souls and spirits in local cosmologies and indigenous religion. It proposes an expansion of the concept to societies featuring mixed farming, sacrifice and hierarchy and explores the question of how non-human agents are created through acts of attention and communication, touching upon the relationship between animist ontologies, world religion, and the state. Shedding new light on Southeast Asian religious ethnographic research, the book is a significant contribution to anthropological theory and the revitalization of the concept of animism in the humanities and social sciences.

Haunted Houses and Ghostly Encounters

Haunted Houses and Ghostly Encounters PDF Author: Christopher John Shepherd
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789813250925
Category : SOCIAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
By presenting a history of Western ethnography of animism in East Timor during the Portuguese period, this intriguing study offers an original synthesis of the country's history, culture and anthropology. The book consists of ten chapters, each one a narrative of the work and experience of a particular ethnographer. Covering a selection of seminal 19th- and 20th-century ethnographies, the author explores the relationship between spiritual beliefs, colonial administration, ethnographic interests and fieldwork experience.

Animism of the Nilotics and Discourses of Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan

Animism of the Nilotics and Discourses of Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan PDF Author: Kuel Maluil Jok
Publisher: Sidestone Press
ISBN: 908890054X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive analysis of Animism as a religion and a culture of the Nilotic peoples of the Upper River Nile in modern "Southern Sudan". It gives an account of how the animistic ritual performances of the divine chief-priests are strategies in conflict management and resolution. For centuries, the Nilotic peoples have been resisting changes to new religious identities and conservatively remained Animists. Their current interactions with the external world, however, have transformed their religious identities. At present, the Nilotics are Animist-Christians or Animist-Muslims. This does not mean that the converted Nilotics relinquish Animism and become completely assimilated to the new religious prophetic dogmas, instead, they develop compatible religious practices of Animism, Christianity and Islam. New Islamic fundamentalism in Sudan which is sweeping Africa into Islamic religious orthodoxy, where Sharia (Islamic law) is the law of the land, rejects this compatibility and categorises the Nilotics as "heathens" and "apostates". Such characterisation engenders opposing religious categories, with one side urging Sharia and the other for what this study calls "gradable" culture. Kuel Jok is a researcher at the Department of World Cultures at the University of Helsinki. In Sudan, Jok obtained a degree in English Linguistics and Literature and diplomas in Philosophy and Translation. He also studied International Law in Egypt. In Europe, Jok acquired an MA in Sociology from the University of Joensuu, Finland and a PhD in the same field from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Christianity and Animism in Melanesia

Christianity and Animism in Melanesia PDF Author: Kenneth Nehrbass
Publisher: William Carey Library Publishers
ISBN: 9780878084074
Category : Animism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In this book, Kenneth Nehrbass examines the interaction between traditional or animistic religion (called kastom) and Christianity in Vanuatu. First, he briefly outlines major anthropological theories of animism, then he examines eight aspects of animism on Tanna Island and shows how they present a challenge to Christianity. He traces the history of Christianity on Tanna from 1839 to the present, showing which missiological theories the various missionaries were implementing. Nehrbass wanted to find out what experiences in the lives of the islanders distinguished those who left traditional religion behind from those who held on to it. In the end, he contends that there are twenty factors of gospel response and cultural integration that determine whether an animistic background believer will be a mixer, separator, transplanter, or contextualizer.

Buddhism: Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia

Buddhism: Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia PDF Author: Paul Williams
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415332330
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This eight-volume set brings together seminal papers in Buddhist studies from a vast range of academic disciplines published over the last forty years. With a new introduction by the editor, this collection is a unique and unrivalled research resource for both student and scholar. Coverage includes: - Buddhist origins; early history of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia - early Buddhist Schools and Doctrinal History; Theravada Doctrine - the Origins and nature of Mahayana Buddhism; some Mahayana religious topics - Abhidharma and Madhyamaka - Yogacara, the Epistemological tradition, and Tathagatagarbha - Tantric Buddhism (Including China and Japan); Buddhism in Nepal and Tibet - Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia, and - Buddhism in China, East Asia, and Japan.

Animism Beyond the Soul

Animism Beyond the Soul PDF Author: Katherine Swancutt
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785338668
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Foreword : the anthropology of ontology meets the writing culture debate. Is reconciliation possible? / Rane Willerslev -- Introduction : anthropological knowledge making, the reflexive feedback loop, and conceptualizations of the soul / Katherine Swancutt And Mireille Mazard -- The algebra of souls : ontological multiplicity and the transformation of animism in southwest china / Mireille Mazard -- Recursivity and the self-reflexive cosmos : tricksters in Cuban and Brazilian spirit mediumship practices / Diana Espãrto Santo -- Spirit of the future : movement, kinetic distribution, and personhood among Siberian Eveny / Olga Ulturgasheva -- The art of capture : hidden jokes and the reinvention of animistic ontologies in Southwest China / Katherine Swancutt -- Narratives of the invisible : autobiography, kinship, and alterity in native Amazonia / Vanessa Elisa Grotti and Marc Brightman -- Technological animism : the uncanny personhood of humanoid machines / Kathleen Richardson -- Postscript : anthropologists and healers and radical empiricists / Edith Turner

Indigenous Spirits and Global Aspirations in a Southeast Asian Borderland

Indigenous Spirits and Global Aspirations in a Southeast Asian Borderland PDF Author: Michael Rose
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
ISBN: 9048550343
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Over the past 40 years, life in Timor-Leste has changed radically. Before 1975 most of the population lived in highland villages, spoke local languages, and rarely used money. Today many have moved to peri-urban lowland settlements, and even those whose lives remain dominated by customary ways understand that those of their children will not. For the Atoni Pah Meto of the island's west, the world was neatly divided into two distinct categories: the meto (indigenous), and the kase (foreign). Now things are less clear; the good things of the outside world are pursued not through rejecting the meto ways of the village, or collapsing them into the kase, but through continual crossing between them. In this way, the people of Oecussi are able to identify in the struggles of lowland life, the comforting and often decisive presence of familiar highland spirits.

Potent Landscapes

Potent Landscapes PDF Author: Catherine Allerton
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824837991
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The Manggarai people of eastern Indonesia believe their land can talk, that its appetite demands sacrificial ritual, and that its energy can kill as well as nurture. They tell their children to avoid certain streams and fields and view unusual environmental events as omens of misfortune. Yet, far from being preoccupied with the dangers of this animate landscape, Manggarai people strive to make places and pathways “lively,” re-traveling routes between houses and villages and highlighting the advantages of mobility. Through everyday and ritual activities that emphasize “liveliness,” the land gains a further potency: the power to evoke memories of birth, death, and marriage, to influence human health and fertility. Potent Landscapes is an ethnographic investigation of the power of the landscape and the implications of that power for human needs, behavior, and emotions. Based on two years of fieldwork in rural Flores, the book situates Manggarai place-making and mobility within the larger contexts of diverse human-environment interactions as well as adat revival in postcolonial Indonesia. Although it focuses on social life in one region of eastern Indonesia, the work engages with broader theoretical discussions of landscape, travel, materiality, cultural politics, kinship, and animism. Written in a clear and accessible style, Potent Landscapes will appeal to students and specialists of Southeast Asia as well as to those interested in the comparative anthropological study of place and environment. The analysis moves out from rooms and houses in a series of concentric circles, outlining at each successive point the broader implications of Manggarai place- and path-making. This gradual expansion of scale allows the work to build a subtle, cumulative picture of the potent landscapes within which Manggarai people raise families, forge alliances, plant crops, build houses, and engage with local state actors. Landscapes are significant, the author argues, not only as sacred or mythic realms, or as contexts for the imposition of colonial space; they are also significant as vernacular contexts shaped by daily practices. The book analyzes the power of a collective landscape shaped both by the Indonesian state’s development policies and by responses to religious change.

Animism

Animism PDF Author: Graham Harvey
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231137003
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements of their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In his new book, Graham Harvey explores indigenous and environmentalist spiritualities in which people celebrate relationships with other-than-human beings. He examines present and past animistic beliefs and practices of the Ojibwe, the Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans, revealing the diverse ways of being animist and of living respectfully within natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of animist worldviews and lifeways. He argues that animist beliefs can contribute significantly to contemporary debates about consciousness, cosmology, and environmentalism. In addition, he examines the colonialist ideologies and methodologies that have caused many academics to exclude the term "animism" from their critical vocabularies.