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Beyond bodies : rainmaking and sense making in Tanzania /

"For over a century, the Ihanzu of north-central Tanzania have conducted rainmaking rites. As with similar rites found across sub-Saharan Africa, these rites are replete with gender, sexual, and fertility motifs. Social scientists have typically explained such things as symbolizing human bodies...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Clasificación:Libro Electrónico
Autor principal: Sanders, Todd, 1965-
Formato: Electrónico eBook
Idioma:Inglés
Publicado: Toronto ; Buffalo, NY : University of Toronto Press, ©2008.
Colección:Anthropological horizons ; 32.
Temas:
Acceso en línea:Texto completo
Descripción
Sumario:"For over a century, the Ihanzu of north-central Tanzania have conducted rainmaking rites. As with similar rites found across sub-Saharan Africa, these rites are replete with gender, sexual, and fertility motifs. Social scientists have typically explained such things as symbolizing human bodies and the act of procreation. But what happens when our interlocutors deny such symbolic explanations, when they insist that rain rites and the gender and sexual motifs in them do not symbolize anything but rather aim simply to bring rain?" "Beyond Bodies examines Ihanzu sensibilities about gender through a fine-grained ethnography of rainmaking rites. It considers the meaning of ritual practices in a society in which gender is not as bound to the body as it is in the Euro-American imagination. Engaging with recent anthropological and gender theory, this book calls crucially into question how social scientists have explained gender symbolism in a host of ethnographic and historical studies from across Africa."--Jacket
Descripción Física:1 online resource (xviii, 261 pages) : illustrations, genealogical table, maps, portraits
Bibliografía:Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-247) and index.
ISBN:9781442628090
144262809X