Vodún, Spirited Forests, and the African Atlantic Forest Complex
Vodún has been described as indefinable, endlessly flexible, and borderless. In this paper, I develop an analytical framework for understanding global Vodún, thereby challenging claims that Vodún is, at its core, inexplicable. To accomplish this, I combine over a decade of ethnographic research in B...
| Published in: | Journal of Africana religions |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
The Pennsylvania State University Press
[2020]
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| In: |
Journal of Africana religions
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Haiti
/ Benin
/ Voodooism
/ Forest (Motif)
/ Internationality
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| RelBib Classification: | AA Study of religion AF Geography of religion AG Religious life; material religion AZ New religious movements BB Indigenous religions KBN Sub-Saharan Africa KBR Latin America NCG Environmental ethics; Creation ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Vodún
B West Africa B Religion B Symbolic anthropology |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | Vodún has been described as indefinable, endlessly flexible, and borderless. In this paper, I develop an analytical framework for understanding global Vodún, thereby challenging claims that Vodún is, at its core, inexplicable. To accomplish this, I combine over a decade of ethnographic research in Bénin and Haiti with my status as an initiate of Haitian Vodou and my time as a diviner's apprentice in Bénin. Joining these three modalities, I explore the centrality of the forest as a key symbol in Vodún cosmology, how the forest's symbolic and ontological potency is maintained in Bénin and beyond, and how a forest-focused analysis of Vodún offers anthropologists new insights into how and why African Atlantic forest religions have been so successful globally. I lay out a new strategy for understanding Vodún that reframes the religion as an ontological product of forest cosmologies, and, in so doing, I argue that Vodún is best understood as a smaller part of a greater African Atlantic religious system that I call the "African Atlantic Forest Complex." |
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| ISSN: | 2165-5413 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of Africana religions
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