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Author De Jong, Ferdinand, author

Title Masquerades of modernity : power and secrecy in Casamance, Senegal Ferdinand de Jong
Published Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2007

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Description Electronic book
1 online resource (x, 228 pages) : PDF file(s)
Contents Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- List of Maps, Figures, Plates and Tables -- Acknowledgements -- About the Author -- Part I: Introduction -- 1. Power of Secrecy -- Part II: Transitions -- 2. Jola Initiations, Gendered Localities -- 3. Out of Diaspora into the Forest -- 4. Politics of the Sacred Forest -- Part III: Trajectories -- 5. Mandinko Initiation: The Making of an Urban Locality -- 6. Secrecy, Sacrilege and the State -- Part IV: Traces -- 7. Masquerade of Migration -- 8. The Art of Tradition -- 9. Writing Secrecy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary How do those on the margins of modernity face the challenges of globalization? This book demonstrates that secrecy is one of the means by which a society on the fringe of modernity produces itself as locality. Focusing on initiation rituals, masked performances and modern art, this study shows that rituals and performances long deemed obsolete, serve the insertion of their performers in the world at their own terms. The Jola and Mandinko people of the Casamance region in Senegal have always used their rituals and performances to incorporate the impact of Islam, colonialism, capitalism, and contemporary politics. Their performances of secrecy have accommodated these modern powers and continue to do so today. The performers incorporate the modern and redefine modernity through secretive practices. Their traditions are not modern inventions, but traditional ways of dealing with modernity. This book will interest anthropologists, historians, political scientists and all those studying how globalisation affects peripheral societies. It shows that secrecy, performed as a weapon of the weak, empowers their performers. Secrecy serves to mark boundaries and define the local in the global
Notes Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 02 Oct 2015)
Subject Secrecy -- Senegal -- Casamance
Rites and ceremonies -- Senegal -- Casamance
Group identity -- Senegal -- Casamance
Ethnology -- Senegal -- Casamance
Globalization.
globalism.
Ethnology.
Globalization.
Group identity.
Manners and customs.
Rites and ceremonies.
Secrecy.
SUBJECT Casamance (Senegal) -- Social life and customs
Casamance (Senegal) -- Religious life and customs
Subject Senegal -- Casamance.
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780748633210
0748633219