Free Delivery Over $100
|
|
|||
|
||||
OverviewIn Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performances of the BisiKongo people of the Lower Congo to show how their gestures, dances, and spirituality are critical in mobilizing social and political action. Conceiving of the body as the center of analysis, a catalyst for social action, and as a conduit for the social construction of reality, Covington-Ward focuses on specific flash points in the last ninety years of Congo's troubled history, when embodied performance was used to stake political claims, foster dissent, and enforce power. In the 1920s Simon Kimbangu started a Christian prophetic movement based on spirit-induced trembling, which swept through the Lower Congo, subverting Belgian colonial authority. Following independence, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko required citizens to dance and sing nationalist songs daily as a means of maintaining political control. More recently, embodied performance has again stoked reform, as nationalist groups such as Bundu dia Kongo advocate for a return to precolonial religious practices and non-Western gestures such as traditional greetings. In exploring these embodied expressions of Congolese agency, Covington-Ward provides a framework for understanding how embodied practices transmit social values, identities, and cultural history throughout Africa and the diaspora. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Yolanda Covington-WardPublisher: Duke University Press Imprint: Duke University Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.544kg ISBN: 9780822360209ISBN 10: 0822360209 Pages: 304 Publication Date: 25 December 2015 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print  This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of Contents"Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Gesture and Power 1 I. Performative Encounters, Political Bodies 1. Neither Native nor Stranger: Places, Encounters, Phophecies 37 II. Spirits, Bodies, and Performance in Belgian Congo 2. ""A War between Soldiers and Prophets"": Embodied Resistance in Colonial Belgian Congo, 1921 71 3. Threatening Gestures, Immoral Bodies: Kingunza after Kimbangu 107 III. Civil Religion and Performed Politics in Postcolonial Congo 4. Dancing with the Invisible: Everyday Performances under Mobutu Sese Seko 137 5. Dancing Disorder in Mobutu's Zaire: Animation Politique and Gendered Nationalisms 165 IV. Re-creating the Past, Performing the Future 6. Bundu dia Kongo and Embodied Revolutions: Performing Kongo Pride, Transforming Modern Society 187 Conclusion: Privileging Gesture and Bodies in Studies of Religion and Power 227 Glossary 233 Notes 235 References 253 Index 275"ReviewsGroundbreaking, intriguing, and ethnographically rich, Gesture and Power is a provocative and significant contribution to the study of gesture, performance, religion, and micropolitics in the Congo.--Bennetta Jules-Rosette, author of Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image A tremendous amount of labor went into this study and the end product is a compelling, engaging, intelligent, and enjoyable text, a fine scholarly contribution to the literature on religion in Central Africa. Small wonder thus that the book is adorned with glowing endorsements on the back cover by such distinguished anthropologists of African religion as Paul Stoller and Bennetta Jules-Rosette. -- Terry Rey * Religion * [Covington-Ward's] attention to the microdynamics of gesture brings the study of rite and ritual into the domain of the evetyday and highlights the profundity of common acts as makers of religious and political meaning. In doing so, she raises questions about position and positionality that are pertinent beyond the powerful dynamics of religion and politics in Congo. -- Emma Wild-Wood * Church History * Gesture and Power is an extraordinary work. . . . [It] provides serious and fertile historical and ethnographic material and offers a solid methodological format and an insightful perspective on African embodied politics and religious practices in both the past and the present. -- Annalisa Butticci * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute * Groundbreaking, intriguing, and ethnographically rich, Gesture and Power is a provocative and significant contribution to the study of gesture, performance, religion, and micropolitics in the Congo. --Bennetta Jules-Rosette, author of Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image Author InformationYolanda Covington-Ward is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
||||
