The Ontogeny of Dolls: Materiality, Affect, and Self in Afro-Cuban Espiritismo

Objects are fundamental components of cosmology in Afro-Cuban religions; they serve to represent, pay homage to, and feed a constellation of covetous spirits. In a moral universe of practitioners materiality allures and potentially corrupts; it grounds personal and collective ritual agency; mediates...

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Библиографические подробности
Главный автор: Espírito Santo, Diana (Автор)
Формат: Электронный ресурс Статья
Язык:Английский
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Опубликовано: Taylor & Francis [2019]
В: Material religion
Год: 2019, Том: 15, Выпуск: 3, Страницы: 269-292
Нормированные ключевые слова (последовательности):B Kuba / Спиритизм / Афро-американский синкретизм / Материальность / Кукла / Онтогенез
Другие ключевые слова:B Cuban creole spiritism
B Materiality
B Selfhood
B Dolls
B Affect
Online-ссылка: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Описание
Итог:Objects are fundamental components of cosmology in Afro-Cuban religions; they serve to represent, pay homage to, and feed a constellation of covetous spirits. In a moral universe of practitioners materiality allures and potentially corrupts; it grounds personal and collective ritual agency; mediates thoughts-feelings; materializes the immaterial; and invariably transcends all these dichotomies and becomes gods, parts of people, concepts. In this article I wish to understand "things" as continuous with the unfolding of selfhood, but more contentiously, with and as affects. Drawing on my long-time research with practitioners of Cuban Creole espiritismo in Havana, for whom "representation" objects are essential to the development of spirits, muertos, and thus extended selves, I argue that the dolls and figurines that mediums regularly fabricate and care for are less "representational" than they are affective forms themselves. Dolls are not symbols for feelings-for-spirits made material or registers of affective perception towards one's muertos; in a very real sense they are affects that may grow roots and bloom. In the ethnography I will describe these relations as a system of affectively invested selfhood, one that encompasses the very muertos in question.
ISSN:1751-8342
Второстепенные работы:Enthalten in: Material religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2019.1603067