Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo (Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People)

In __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. Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 Introduction: Gesture and Power 14 I. Performative Encounters, Political Bodies 48 1. Neither Native nor Stranger: Places, Encounters, Prophecies 50 II. Spirits, Bodies, and Performance in Belgian Congo 82 2. “A War between Soldiers and Prophets”: Embodied Resistance in Colonial Belgian Congo, 1921 84 3. Threatening Gestures, Immoral Bodies: Kingunza after Kimbangu 120 III. Civil Religion and Performed Politics in Postcolonial Congo 148 4. Dancing with the Invisible: Everyday Performances under Mobutu Sese Seko 150 5. Dancing Disorder in Mobutu’s Zaire: Animation Politique and Gendered Nationalisms 178 IV. Re-Creating the Past, Performing the Future 198 6. Bundu dia Kongo and Embodied Revolutions: Performing Kongo Pride, Transforming Modern Society 200 Conclusion: Privileging Gesture and Bodies in Studies of Religion and Power 240 Glossary 246 Notes 248 References 266 Index 288 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 exploring these embodied expressions of Congolese agency, the author provides a framework for understanding how embodied practices transmit social values, identities, and cultural history throughout Africa and the diaspora. --From publisher description