Spirit Possession and Personhood among the Kel Ewey Tuareg

Rasmussen, Susan J.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511521140

Cited by 92 publications

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“…In some Tuareg contexts, the Turkish attitude Mirdal translates as 'shame' (implying embarrassment) denotes respect, the opposite of familiar joking relationships. One difference between the Tuareg notion of takarakit and some other peoples' notions of shame, such as the Turkish case that Mirdal analyzes, is the marked gender symmetry in the Tuareg case: both women and men are strongly restricted by shame and expected to be modest, and there is relatively free social interaction between the sexes (Casajus, 2000;Claudot-Hawad, 1993;Rasmussen, 1995Rasmussen, , 1997.…”

Section: The Language Of Shame: Problems Of Intentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuing commentary: Revitalizing Shame: Some Reflections on `Changing Idioms of Shame: Expressions of Disgrace and Dishonour in the Narratives of Turkish Women Living in Denmark'

Rasmussen

2007

Culture & Psychology

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Throughout many studies, shame is approached not solely as a personal or individual sentiment or emotion, but also as a collective social and cultural preoccupation. Many studies also have asserted that shame is best understood in terms of its assumed opposite, honor, for example, as represented in so-called 'honor/shame' complexes of certain regions such as the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Critical responses to these studies have included efforts to represent more balanced, multiple voices and perspectives concerning shame and related sentiments:for example, emphasis of women's viewpoints and more transcultural contexts. Mirdal's article contributes to these efforts.This commentary discusses some challenges of placing shame in wider contexts of broader concerns in cultural theory, moving toward more nuanced, processual and dynamic portrayals of cultural and social practices. Shame needs to be analyzed in terms of both intimate and subjective sentiments, on the one hand, and politics and domination, on the other. More nuanced analysis yields insights into modernity, thereby detaching analysis of shame from some previous tendencies to associate this sentiment solely with tradition and the past. This commentary also argues, however, that there remain semantic and pragmatic problems of intentionality and agency. Fundamental to understanding shame, therefore, is detailed analysis of its nuanced meanings, as well as its effects in different social encounters.In studies of culture and psychology, in particular psychological and social anthropology, there has been much attention devoted to a range of personal sentiments and social mores conventionally glossed asCulture & Psychology

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Section: The Language Of Shame: Problems Of Intentionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuing commentary: Revitalizing Shame: Some Reflections on `Changing Idioms of Shame: Expressions of Disgrace and Dishonour in the Narratives of Turkish Women Living in Denmark'

Rasmussen

2007

Culture & Psychology

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“…In ritual healing and cosmology, this denotes approximately ‘the wild’ or ‘solitude’; it is at once a mental state, a place where the soul of a possessed person travels, and also a literal remote space, far from the nomadic tent and camp (Casajus 1987; 1989; Claudot‐Hawad 1993; J. Nicolaisen 1961; Rasmussen 1995). Paradoxically, it is a place to which some are tempted to travel, but also an abyss of suffering.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Essuf imagery pervades Tuareg social and cultural interactions of varying scale, within as well as across cultural borders, and yet is deeply personal and subjective. I have already analysed essuf in relation to spirit possession (Rasmussen 1995; 2001 a ; 2001 b ), and Casajus (1987; 1989) has already analysed it in relation to mortuary cults; thus here I explore essuf in terms of its changing uses over the past few decades. The approach here is to cast the ethnographic notion of essuf in a wider light, not by conflating theoretical models in anthropology with local patterns, but, rather, by respecting local ethnography as theory in its own right, and thereby suggesting alternative images and models for conceptualizing the simultaneity of global and local ideas and practices, ones which do not fall into the trap, as Tsing (2005: 58) terms it, of ‘the dichotomy between the global blob and local detail’.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The people of solitude: recalling and reinventing essuf (the wild) in traditional and emergent Tuareg cultural spaces

Rasmussen

2008

Royal Anthropological Inst

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This article explores continuities and discontinuities in conventional and changing meanings and uses of essuf, a term which denotes approximately the ‘wild’, ‘solitude’, or ‘nostalgia’ in dialects of the Tamajaq language spoken by Tuareg peoples in Mali and Niger. In this analysis of creative reinventions of essuf in both local and ‘borderlands’ spaces of psycho‐social crises, oral art performances, and ‘modern’ literature, the wider goal is to produce more nuanced anthropological understandings of local/global and structure/agency connections. The data illustrate the connections between sacred spaces – literal, imagined, and remembered – in African philosophical modes of thought and socio‐political power and agency. The Tuareg case opens up perspectives on how cultural spaces of varying scale are affected by selective remembering, and creative re‐enacting of key philosophical notions. The data caution anthropologists against reifications and binaries of global and local, and structure and agency. Résumé L'article explore les continuités et discontinuités dans les significations et usages conventionnels et changeants de l'essouf, qui désigne approximativement le monde sauvage, la nostalgie ou la solitude dans les dialectes du langage tamajaq parlé par les Touareg du Mali et du Niger. Dans cette analyse des réinventions créatives de l'essouf dans les espaces locaux et « frontaliers » des crises psychosociales, des performances d'art oral et de la littérature « moderne », le but plus large est de parvenir à une compréhension anthropologique plus nuancée des liens entre local et global, entre structure et agency. Les données illustrent les liens entre les espaces sacrés, littéraux, imaginés et remémorés, dans les modes de pensée et de pouvoir sociopolitique africains. Le cas des Touareg ouvre de nouvelles perspectives sur la manière dont les espaces culturels d'échelles variables sont affectés par la remémoration sélective et la réincarnation créative de notions philosophiques essentielles. Ces données sont aussi une mise en garde aux anthropologues contre les réifications et les concepts binaires de global et local, de structure et d'agency.

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“…Rasmussen has provided us with a rich understanding of these healing practices, which were largely neglected in the English literature before her work (also see Rasmussen 1995Rasmussen , 2001. She is to be commended for not only for providing a richly descriptive and informative ethnography of healing but also a highly readable book that should have an appeal outside of anthropology.…”

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confidence: 99%

Those Who Touch Tuareg Medicine Women in Anthropological Perspective by Susan Rasmussen

Winkelman¹

2008

American Ethnologist

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In an engaging and richly documented book, Susan Rasmussen addresses one of the healing traditions of the Tuareg (of Niger and Mali, West Africa), illustrating the mediating roles of the tinesmegelen (women healers). She provides a rich description of metaphors of illness and health through case studies that convey emic concepts of maladies, which Rasmussen generally refused to translate into Western categories because of what she considers the lack of true translatability. While recognizing the difficulty in generalizing about these practices in terms of the classic categories of anthropology and Western thought, she nonetheless engages in comparisons of these practices to European and cross-cultural categories and practices. These healing practices cross-cut the distinctions of physical and spiritual medicine and integrate these different aspects of healing. Rasmussen explains how the practices of the tinesmegelen challenge the legitimacy of these dichotomies, engaging conditions that cannot be reduced to naturalistic conditions nor seen as strictly spiritual or cultural. By refusing to categorize the tinesmegelen as just natural or spiritual healers, Rasmussen shows how their practices and ideology overcome the binary contradictions of culture and nature. These views are illustrated in examination of the roles of touch in diagnosis and healing and in showing how botanical knowledge and applications involve more than just physical medicine.

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Spirit Possession and Personhood among the Kel Ewey Tuareg

Cited by 92 publications

References 0 publications

Continuing commentary: Revitalizing Shame: Some Reflections on `Changing Idioms of Shame: Expressions of Disgrace and Dishonour in the Narratives of Turkish Women Living in Denmark'

Continuing commentary: Revitalizing Shame: Some Reflections on `Changing Idioms of Shame: Expressions of Disgrace and Dishonour in the Narratives of Turkish Women Living in Denmark'

The people of solitude: recalling and reinventing essuf (the wild) in traditional and emergent Tuareg cultural spaces

Those Who Touch Tuareg Medicine Women in Anthropological Perspective by Susan Rasmussen

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