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E-book
Author Grillo, Laura S., 1956- author.

Title An intimate rebuke : female genital power in ritual and politics in West Africa / Laura S. Grillo
Published Durham : Duke University Press, 2018
©2018

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 284 pages)
Series The religious cultures of African and African diaspora people
Religious cultures of African and African diaspora people.
Contents 1. Genies, witches, and women : locating female powers -- 2. Matrifocal morality : FGP and the foundation of "home" -- 3. Gender and resistance : the "strategic essentialism" of FGP -- 4. Founding knowledge/binding power : the moral foundations of ethnicity and alliance -- 5. Women at the checkpoint : challenging the forces of civil war -- 6. Violation and deployment : FGP in politics in Côte d'Ivoire -- 7. Memory, memorialization, and morality -- Conclusion : an intimate rebuke: a local critique in the global postcolony
Summary Throughout West African societies, at times of social crises, postmenopausal women--the Mothers--make a ritual appeal to their innate moral authority. The seat of this power is the female genitalia. Wielding branches or pestles, they strip naked and slap their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. In An Intimate Rebuke Laura S. Grillo draws on fieldwork in Côte d'Ivoire that spans three decades to illustrate how these rituals of Female Genital Power (FGP) constitute religious and political responses to abuses of power. When deployed in secret, FGP operates as spiritual warfare against witchcraft; in public, it serves as a political activism. During Côte d'Ivoire's civil wars FGP challenged the immoral forces of both rebels and the state. Grillo shows how the ritual potency of the Mothers' nudity and the conjuration of their sex embodies a moral power that has been foundational to West African civilization. Highlighting the remarkable continuity of the practice across centuries while foregrounding the timeliness of FGP in contemporary political resistance, Grillo shifts perspectives on West African history, ethnography, comparative religious studies, and postcolonial studies
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/arr/4.0/legalcode
digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Print version record
Subject Generative organs, Female -- Political aspects -- Côte d'Ivoire
Generative organs, Female -- Religious aspects.
Generative organs, Female -- Symbolic aspects -- Côte d'Ivoire
Older women -- Political activity -- Côte d'Ivoire
Older women -- Religious life -- Côte d'Ivoire
Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies.
Generative organs, Female -- Religious aspects.
Religion.
SUBJECT Côte d'Ivoire -- Religion
Subject Côte d'Ivoire.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2018013660
ISBN 1478001208
1478002638
9781478001201
9781478002635