Other worlds, other bodies : embodied epistemologies and ethnographies of healing

When approaching the multiplicity of the spiritual experiences of healing, ethnographers are often presented with ideas of the existence of “other” worlds that may intersect with the so-called “material” or “physical” worlds. This book proposes a sensory ethnography of healing with a focus on ethnographic knowing as embedded in an embodied epistemology of healing. Epistemological embodiment signals that personal scholarly experience of the “unknown”—be it in the form of trance, or as the embodiment of an “other”—shapes the concepts of healing, body, trance, self, and matter by which ethnographers craft out analysis. “This book makes some highly original and extraordinarily important contributions to anthropology and religious studies that will appeal to a wide readership across these disciplines, from students and specialists of healing and spiritualism to those with an interest in scholarly theories and methods of illuminating the unknown.” • Katherine Swancutt, King's College London “This volume is an illustration of the productive and exciting developments in the field of the anthropology of religion, in particular to what concerns health and healing practices, covering novel approaches and territories that experimentally transcend the classic formulations and interpretations on "spirit possession".” • Ruy Llera Blanes, University of Gothenburg Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction. Embodied Epistemologies of Healing Part I. Paradoxes and Dilemmas 1. Playing with Other Worlds: Renegotiating Bodily Experience and Hierarchy in Afro-Brazilian Candomblé 2. Embodied Knowledge and the Phenomenological Posture to Frame the Anthropology of “Extraordinary” Experiences 3. Living with Spirits: Spirituality and Health in São Paulo, Brazil Part II. Transitions and Transformations 4. The Ghosts That Haunt Me: Feeling with Affective Technologies and Doing Ethnography about Spirit Possession in Contemporary Japan 5. “Try Feeding the Ghost More”: Illness Experience and Understanding the Unseen in a Tamang Village, Nepal 6. Encountering Other Worlds through “Transreligiosity”: A Comparative Account of Healing, Embodiment, and Transformation in the Field 7. Learning to Trance: The Affective Grounding of Becoming Another Body in Another Place Part III. Engagements 8. Ways of Knowing and Healing: Mediumistic and Ethnographic Epiphanies in the Vale do Amanhecer 9. Learning to Read the World: Education of Attention and Parapsychic Perception of the Environment 10. Sensory Ethnography and Anthropology of Mediumship: Exploring Brazilian Spiritist Practices in (Mental) Well-Being and Health/Care 11. Channeling an Archangel: An Apprenticeship in Metatronic Life and Healing ® Epilogue. Healing, Images, and Trust Index "When approaching the multiplicity of the spiritual experiences of healing, ethnographers are often presented with ideas of the existence of "other" worlds that may intersect with the so-called "material" or "physical" worlds. This book proposes a sensory ethnography of healing with a focus on ethnographic knowing as embedded in an embodied epistemology of healing. Epistemological embodiment signals that personal scholarly experience of the "unknown"--be it in the form of trance, or as the embodiment of an "other"--shapes the concepts of healing, body, trance, self, and matter by which ethnographers craft out analysis"-- Provided by publisher