Sacred Spaces and Public Quarrels: African Cultural and Economic Landscapes - Softcover

9780865437074: Sacred Spaces and Public Quarrels: African Cultural and Economic Landscapes

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865437076 ISBN 13: 9780865437074

Publisher: Africa World Press, 1999

This collection of essays, based on first-hand anthropological field research spanning many years, brings together in a single volume the author's collected material on characteristics of popular Islam amongst the Somali of the Horn of Africa. The tension between mystically mediated views of man's relation to God and more ritualistic interpretations of region provides the main focus of this book-Sufism on the one hand, and skeptical criticism of this mystical understanding of Islam on the other. A universal religion here, as elsewhere, Islam has its own local emphasis and special features, and in these investigations of the cult of saints, the reader is introduced to an array of Somali saints and holy men, their reputation for mystical powers, and the pathways to veneration. The repertoire includes clan ancestors, local holy men of outstanding piety, and famous pan-Islamic figures. These essays also look at some popular practices which are at the margins of orthodox religion, such as spirit possession cults associated primarily with women.

Lewis' introductory essay to this volume deserves special attention. In it he challenges single strand theories on the cult of saints espoused by some scholars and non scholars, and sets the stage for the presentation of an intricate and integrated picture of Muslim beliefs and practice among the Somali. Rigorous, outspoken, and backing his arguments with reflections based on a lifetime of research and scholarship, Lewis makes a major contribution to understanding the place and role of religion in Somali society.

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From the Back Cover:

How do African conceive space? How are places constructed and imagined? How do the conceptions, constructions, imaginings of spaces and places affect, an in turn are affected by, social, economic and political change? These are some of the questions this book seeks to answer. It is the first book of its kind in African studies to address itself systematically to the themes of space and spatiality.

The book begins with a lucid and engaging introduction on the concept of spatiality and its emerging centrality in the formulation of social theory. The rest of the book is organized into four parts. The papers in the fist section titled "the changing morphology of urban spaces" reconceptualize African cities, their sustainability and development, and interrogate the impact of economic crisis and structural adjustment programs on the organization and reproduction of urban life, including the social dynamics of gender roles and economic changes in urban Africa.

Papers in the second section titled, "the construction of landscapes as ritual, therapeutic, symbolic and aesthetic spaces" examine in various ways the constructions of therapeutic and ritual spaces, cultural and medical geographies, ecological knowledge, and the spatial dynamics of the social ecologies of gender and disease.

The third section in on "narrating and imagining spaces" and contains papers which explore the question of spatiality and artistic production, specifically relations between art and space, texts and contexts, autobiography and space. The chapters in the last section on "spatiality of nations, communities, and identities" focus on the political economy of territoriality and identity formation, especially how nationalistic, ethnic and gender identities are constructed and transformed in the context of struggles over structures of power and access to political, economic and symbolic resources, including land.

About the Author:

Ezekiel Kalipeni is assistant professor of Geography and African studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Paul Tiyambe Zeleza is professor of History and African Studies, and Director of the Center for African Studies at the University of illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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