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Author: Timo Kallinen Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand ISBN: 9522226823 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
In present-day Africa chiefs interact fluently with modern states, international organizations, and business corporations, and traditional chieftaincy is perceived essentially as a secular institution. Consequently, social scientists have started paying serious attention to the role of traditional authorities in contemporary political landscapes. Yet it was only a few decades ago that classic ethnographers were characterizing chiefs as priests, magicians, diviners, rainmakers, and the like. What happened to the divinity of African chiefs and kings? Drawing on his research on the Asante people of Ghana, West Africa, Timo Kallinen explores how the colonial and postcolonial states have attempted to secularize the sacred institutions of chiefship and kingship, a process which is by no means complete. Furthermore, it has frequently proved a problematic undertaking with regards to a number of burning issues in contemporary Ghanaian society, such as Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, nationalism, international development aid, civil society participation, coup d'états, and witchcraft.
Author: Timo Kallinen Publisher: BoD - Books on Demand ISBN: 9522226823 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 210
Book Description
In present-day Africa chiefs interact fluently with modern states, international organizations, and business corporations, and traditional chieftaincy is perceived essentially as a secular institution. Consequently, social scientists have started paying serious attention to the role of traditional authorities in contemporary political landscapes. Yet it was only a few decades ago that classic ethnographers were characterizing chiefs as priests, magicians, diviners, rainmakers, and the like. What happened to the divinity of African chiefs and kings? Drawing on his research on the Asante people of Ghana, West Africa, Timo Kallinen explores how the colonial and postcolonial states have attempted to secularize the sacred institutions of chiefship and kingship, a process which is by no means complete. Furthermore, it has frequently proved a problematic undertaking with regards to a number of burning issues in contemporary Ghanaian society, such as Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity, nationalism, international development aid, civil society participation, coup d'états, and witchcraft.
Author: Timo Kallinen Publisher: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura ISBN: 9522227935 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 206
Book Description
The divine kingship and chiefship of the Asante people of central Ghana have been undergoing a shift towards secularization since the start of the colonial era. Timo Kallinen maintains that a close examination of this transformation provides us with a better understanding of secularization processes in Ghana more broadly, and in other post-colonial societies whose historical development likewise differs from that of the modern West, and which have largely confronted secular modernity through encounters with European colonialism. Throughout the volume secularization is understood as a process in modern society whereby divinity is separated from the ways in which both human society is regulated and physical nature is understood to function. Divine Rulers in a Secular State has been divided into three thematic parts, each with a short theoretical introduction. In the first two, analysis is primarily inspired by the work of Louis Dumont, while in the third the theoretical ideas of Webb Keane and Bruno Latour are of central importance. The undifferentiated order of the pre-colonial Asante kingdom, in which the chiefly and priestly functions of the rulers were not separated, comprises the initial focus. Sacrifices and marriage exchanges, both of which were directed at establishing and perpetuating relations between the living and the spirits of the dead ancestors, are posited as the most important responsibilities of the chief. Also explored are perceptions that the founding of the kingdom and its authority structure are the results of sacrifices offered to various gods by the Asante king and his chiefs. The second part examines the dissolution of the traditional order since the onset of British colonial occupation. The secularization process was initiated by the aspirations of colonial administrators and missionary bodies who aimed to maintain Christian converts under the ‘political’ authority of their non-Christian chiefs, who were still important ritual leaders. Consequently, it was necessary to start dividing society along ‘political’ and ‘religious’ lines so that only the former was a mandatory concern for all. The kernel of modern citizenship was planted at the same time as the ‘religious’ conscience of individuals started to shape their rights and duties towards their ‘political’ rulers. Furthermore, theories about Asante as a state based on contract and representation were proposed and developed. In the post-colonial era chiefship has been put into the service of the independent nation state – both as an instrument of administration and a nationalistic symbol, while, most recently, chiefs have been depicted as leaders in civil society, even receiving support from global developmental organizations. Yet traditional chieftaincy is strongly criticized by certain Christian groups belonging to the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement, which still see it as integrally linked to traditional cosmologies. The third part of the book takes the discussion beyond the separation of the categories of religion and politics. Secularization has also has also entailed the dematerialization of religion, establishing it as something that ought to be understood primarily as mental or spiritual; in a secular society ‘things’ like deities, witchcraft, or sacrifices should not be recognized as proper agents and actions at the level of immanent relations. In Ghana such views are effectively contradicted by religious groups which see spiritual forces as the most powerful agents in social relations. The cases discussed deal with attempted state control of anti-witchcraft activities, the efficiency of protective magic during political upheavals, and Pentecostal notions of demonic influences in secular politics. The Conclusions section brings the themes of the book together by discussing the large-scale effects of the secular project in contemporary Ghanaian society. Research is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in Ghana in 2000–2001 and 2005–2006, data drawn from several archival sources located in Ghana and the United Kingdom, and the anthropological and historical literature on Ghana and the Asante.
Author: A. Azfar Moin Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231555407 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 653
Book Description
Sacred kingship has been the core political form, in small-scale societies and in vast empires, for much of world history. This collaborative and interdisciplinary book recasts the relationship between religion and politics by exploring this institution in long-term and global comparative perspective. Editors A. Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern present a theoretical framework for understanding sacred kingship, which leading scholars reflect on and respond to in a series of essays. They distinguish between two separate but complementary religious tendencies, immanentism and transcendentalism, which mold kings into divinized or righteous rulers, respectively. Whereas immanence demands priestly and cosmic rites from kings to sustain the flourishing of life, transcendence turns the focus to salvation and subordinates rulers to higher ethical objectives. Secular modernity does not end the struggle between immanence and transcendence—flourishing and righteousness—but only displaces it from kings onto nations and individuals. After an essay by Marshall Sahlins that ranges from the Pacific to the Arctic, the book contains chapters on religion and kingship in settings as far-flung as ancient Egypt, classical Greece, medieval Islam, Mughal India, modern European drama, and ISIS. Sacred Kingship in World History sheds new light on how religion has constructed rulership, with implications spanning global history, religious studies, political theory, and anthropology.
Author: Alan Strathern Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108477143 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 409
Book Description
This ground-breaking study sets out a new understanding of transformations in the interaction between religion and political authority throughout history.
Author: Beate Dignas Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
"What is a Greek priest?" The volume, which has its origins in a symposium held at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., focuses on the question through a variety of lenses: the visual representation of cult personnel, priests as ritual experts, variations of priesthood, ideal concepts and their transformation, and the role of manteis. Each chapter looks at how priests and religious officials used a potential authority to promote themselves and their posts, how they played a role in conserving, shaping and reviving cult activity, how they acted behind the curtain of polis institutions, and how they performed as mediators between men and gods. It becomes clear that Greek priests had many faces, and that the factors that determined their roles and activities are political as well as historical, religious as well as economic, idealistic as well as pragmatic, personal as well as communal.
Author: Robert A. Yelle Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022658559X Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
Sovereignty and the Sacred challenges contemporary models of polity and economy through a two-step engagement with the history of religions. Beginning with the recognition of the convergence in the history of European political theology between the sacred and the sovereign as creating “states of exception”—that is, moments of rupture in the normative order that, by transcending this order, are capable of re-founding or remaking it—Robert A. Yelle identifies our secular, capitalist system as an attempt to exclude such moments by subordinating them to the calculability of laws and markets. The second step marshals evidence from history and anthropology that helps us to recognize the contribution of such states of exception to ethical life, as a means of release from the legal or economic order. Yelle draws on evidence from the Hebrew Bible to English deism, and from the Aztecs to ancient India, to develop a theory of polity that finds a place and a purpose for those aspects of religion that are often marginalized and dismissed as irrational by Enlightenment liberalism and utilitarianism. Developing this close analogy between two elemental domains of society, Sovereignty and the Sacred offers a new theory of religion while suggesting alternative ways of organizing our political and economic life. By rethinking the transcendent foundations and liberating potential of both religion and politics, Yelle points to more hopeful and ethical modes of collective life based on egalitarianism and popular sovereignty. Deliberately countering the narrowness of currently dominant economic, political, and legal theories, he demonstrates the potential of a revived history of religions to contribute to a rethinking of the foundations of our political and social order.
Author: Timothy Insoll Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 019923244X Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 1135
Book Description
A comprehensive overview, by period and region, of the archaeology of ritual and religion. The coverage is global, and extends from the earliest prehistory to modern times. Written by over sixty renowned specialists, the Handbook presents the very best in current scholarship, and will also stimulate further research.
Author: Timo Kallinen
Author: Timo Kallinen
Author: Timo Kallinen
Author: A. Azfar Moin
Author: Jacob K. Olupona
Author: Alan Strathern
Author: Robert Filmer
Author: John Neville Figgis
Author: Beate Dignas
Author: Robert A. Yelle
Author: Timothy Insoll