By bringing the active challenge to ethnographic authority by people written about to the fore, the authors of this chapter hope to raise some doubts about the matter-of-factness with which... Show moreBy bringing the active challenge to ethnographic authority by people written about to the fore, the authors of this chapter hope to raise some doubts about the matter-of-factness with which ethnographers maintain their identity as scholarly writers who do their research in some 'field' far away from 'home'. Focusing on the study of religion in Africa, they present two cases in which the tactical behaviour of both the anthropologists and their interlocutors challenges the hegemony of their attitudes towards each other's production of knowledge. The authors first discuss an element of anthropological fieldwork which, in practice, has been rare: the initiation of the researcher into secrets held by local religious leaders. Here, ethnographers (act as if they) accept the hegemony of the 'other' cultural practice while being initiated. Second, they describe a case from van Dijk's own fieldwork and show how the researcher was obliged to go through a penitential exercise after having produced a text in a popular magazine which insufficiently recognized the inspirational authority of religious leaders in the field (Born-Again preachers in Blantyre, Malawi). Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
Aim of this volume, which brings together seven studies of religious change in Zambia, is to describe the processes of religious change in this country during the last few centuries. These studies... Show moreAim of this volume, which brings together seven studies of religious change in Zambia, is to describe the processes of religious change in this country during the last few centuries. These studies are: 1) Towards a theory of religious change in Central Africa. 2) Possession and mediumship in Zambia: towards a comparative approach. 3) Explorations in the history and sociology of territorial cults in Zambia. 4) Religious change and the problem of evil in Western Zambia. 5) Regional and non-regional cults of affliction in Western Zambia. 6) Ritual, class and urban-rural relations. 7) Cults of affliction in town, and the articulation of modes of production. Show less
Paper read at the University of Zambia/ University of California Los Angeles conference on the history of Central African religious systems, Lusaka, 16 pp, 1972
