Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (New Directions in Anthropological Writing) - Softcover

Boddy, Janice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299123146 ISBN 13: 9780299123147

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989

Synopsis

Based on nearly two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a Muslim village in northern Sudan, Wombs and Alien Spirits explores the zār cult, the most widely practiced traditional healing cult in Africa.  Adherents of the cult are usually women with marital or fertility problems, who are possessed by spirits very different from their own proscribed roles as mothers.  Through the woman, the spirit makes demands upon her husband and family and makes provocative comments on village issues, such as the increasing influence of formal Islam or encroaching Western economic domination.  In accommodating the spirits, the women are able metaphorically to reformulate everyday discourse to portray consciousness of their own subordination.
    Janice Boddy examines the moral universe of the village, discussing female circumcision, personhood, kinship, and bodily integrity, then describes the workings of the cult and the effect of possession on the lives of men as well as women.   She suggests that spirit possession is a feminist discourse, though a veiled and allegorical one, on women's objectification and subordination.  Additionally, the spirit world acts as a foil for village life in the context of rapid historical change and as such provides a focus for cultural resistance that is particularly, though not exclusively, relevant to women.

About this title

About the Author:

Janice Boddy is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto.

Review:

“Wombs and Alien Spirits is a provocative book on women and religion and a valuable addition to the literature on Sudan.”—Victoria Bernal, The Middle East Journal

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0299123146
• ISBN 13: 9780299123147
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 424