The Quest for Spiritual Transformation

The Quest for Spiritual Transformation
Author: Nana Akua Kyerewaa Opokuwaa
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2005
Genre: Akan (African people)
ISBN: 0595350712

Are you searching for a spiritual path that speaks to your cultural identity? Are you curious about the connection of the African-American experience to ancient African culture and spirituality? The Quest for Spiritual Transformation: An Introduction to Traditional Akan Religion, Rituals, and Practices is an important contribution to the exploration of cultural approaches to healing the mind, body, and spirit. Author Nana Opokuwaa clearly illustrates the connection between the traditions and beliefs of Africans born in the Diaspora to the ancient customs of the Akans. Her writing style exhibits a special sensitivity and compassion that shows appreciation for the reader's need for guidance. Opokuwaa's approach to explaining the Akan Akom Tradition brings clarity to the complicated practices associated with African religion in the Diaspora. In addition to seven study guides meant to serve as discussion points within your organization, group of friends, or for yourself, this book includes a list of references to enlighten you about Akan culture, customs, and traditions. There is a glossary of Twi words, with which readers may not be familiar, utilized in the book and an index for readily available reference. In the follow-up to Akan Protocol: Remembering the Traditions of Our Ancestors, Opokuwaa continues her effort to share information about the ancient traditions and customs of the Akans of Ghana, West Africa.

Mmoetia

Mmoetia
Author: Gabriel Bannerman-Richter
Publisher:
Total Pages: 184
Release: 1987
Genre: Social Science
ISBN:

Anthropology and Cryptozoology

Anthropology and Cryptozoology
Author: Samantha Hurn
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2016-11-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317180453

Cryptozoology is best understood as the study of animals which, in the eyes of Western science, are extinct, unclassified or unrecognised. In consequence, and in part because of its selective methods and lack of epistemological rigour, cryptozoology is often dismissed as a pseudo-science. However, there is a growing recognition that social science can benefit from engaging with it, for as as social scientists are very well aware, ’scientific’ categorisation and explanation represents just one of a myriad of systems used by humans to enable them to classify and make sense of the world around them. In many cultural contexts, myth, folk classification and lived experience challenge the ’truth’ expounded by scientists. With a reflexive, anthropological approach and drawing on rich empirical and ethnographic studies from around the world, this volume engages with the theoretical and methodological issues raised by reported sightings of unrecognised animals. Bringing into sharp focus the anthropological value and challenges for methodology posed by beliefs about unclassified creatures, Anthropology and Cryptozoology: Exploring encounters with mysterious creatures will be of interest to anthropologists, sociologists and geographers working in the fields of research methods, anthrozoology, mythology and folklore and human-animal interaction.

Darkness Before Daybreak

Darkness Before Daybreak
Author: Hans Lucht
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2012
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0520270711

“Lucht’s engaging prose style and keen ethnographic eye provide for a captivating narrative on a form of population movement often in the news but rarely if ever really understood.” --Jeffrey E. Cole, author with Sally Booth of Dirty Work: Immigrants in Domestic Service, Agriculture, and Prostitution in Sicily. “Few ethnographers manage to integrate in-depth multi-sited fieldwork, enthralling narrative and innovative theory as well as Hans Lucht does in this study of existential reciprocity among Ghanaian fishermen forced by dwindling catches to embark on hazardous migrations to Europe in search of the wherewithall of life. In Lucht's capable hands, these stories become an allegory of our times.” --Michael Jackson, author of Life Within Limits: Well-Being in a World of Want. "An original, comprehensive, and skilled study, Darkness before Daybreak provides the reader with a real sense of the quality and meaning of existence in Ghana and in Naples, while providing enough historical and political/economic context to permit a nuanced critical analysis of globalization theory." --Peter Schneider, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology, Fordham University, and author with Jane Schneider of Reversible Destiny: Mafia, Antimafia, and the Struggle for Palermo.

The Mark of Slavery

The Mark of Slavery
Author: Jenifer L. Barclay
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2021-04-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0252052617

Exploring the disability history of slavery Time and again, antebellum Americans justified slavery and white supremacy by linking blackness to disability, defectiveness, and dependency. Jenifer L. Barclay examines the ubiquitous narratives that depicted black people with disabilities as pitiable, monstrous, or comical, narratives used not only to defend slavery but argue against it. As she shows, this relationship between ableism and racism impacted racial identities during the antebellum period and played an overlooked role in shaping American history afterward. Barclay also illuminates the everyday lives of the ten percent of enslaved people who lived with disabilities. Devalued by slaveholders as unsound and therefore worthless, these individuals nonetheless carved out an unusual autonomy. Their roles as caregivers, healers, and keepers of memory made them esteemed within their own communities and celebrated figures in song and folklore. Prescient in its analysis and rich in detail, The Mark of Slavery is a powerful addition to the intertwined histories of disability, slavery, and race.

Kakaamotobe

Kakaamotobe
Author: Courtnay Micots
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2021-06-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1793643105

Kakaamotobe, meaning to scare, is known across southern Ghana, West Africa, as Fancy Dress performance. Masqueraders dress in colorful costumes and wear fancy and fierce masks; they dance energetically to drums or brass band music through the main streets of town during holidays, especially during Christmastime. Competitions held in two towns are intense annual events. This lively secular masquerade is a carnival form that has been practiced for well over a century primarily by coastal Fante people, and many additional ethnicities participate today. Kakaamotobe: Fancy Dress Carnival in Ghana explores the fascinating history, aesthetics, performance, and underlying messages of this masquerade with ties to other carnivalesque practices in the Black Atlantic. While Fancy Dress may engage with global cultures through some of its aesthetics, the practice is profoundly African. The utilization of elaborate costumes, masks, and brass bands expresses not a desire to imitate outside cultures, but rather the impulse of youth to adapt traditional culture to the contemporary environment. Courtnay Micots argues that the outward impression of folly belies the more serious refashioning of power, identity, and modernity in the community.

African Studies

African Studies
Author: Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 488
Release: 1960
Genre: Africa
ISBN:

Pentecostal Exorcism

Pentecostal Exorcism
Author: Opoku Onyinah
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004397108

"Witchcraft" and exorcism have long been dominant features of life in African cultures. This unique book provides a thorough, field research-based description and analysis of a specifically Pentecostal Christian response to these phenomena within the Akan culture of Ghana. Anthropological studies generally claim that the ultimate goal of exorcism is modernisation. Using interdisciplinary studies with a theological focus, the author takes a different view, arguing that it is divinatory consultation or an inquiry into the sacred and the search for meaning that underlies the current "deliverance" ministry, where the focus is to identify and break down the so-called demonic forces by the power of God and to "deliver" people from their torment. The deliverance ministry is one attempt to contextualise the gospel for African people. However, preoccupation with demonisation and exorcistic practices is found to bring Christianity into tension with the Akan culture, family ties and other religions. In order to develop a properly safeguarded ministry of exorcism in an African context, the author examines contextualisation and suggests the integration into African Christianity of divinatory consultation, which has strong resonances with the biblical concept of prayer.

Bioarchaeology of Impairment and Disability

Bioarchaeology of Impairment and Disability
Author: Jennifer F. Byrnes
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2017-06-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 331956949X

Over the years, impairment has been discussed in bioarchaeology, with some scholars providing carefully contextualized explanations for their causes and consequences. Such investigations typically take a case study approach and focus on the functional aspects of impairments. However, these interpretations are disconnected from disability theory discourse. Other social sciences and the humanities have far surpassed most of anthropology (with the exception of medical anthropology) in their integration of social theories of disability. This volume has three goals: The first goal of this edited volume is to present theoretical and methodological discussions on impairment and disability. The second goal of this volume is to emphasize the necessity of interdisciplinarity in discussions of impairment and disability within bioarchaeology. The third goal of the volume is to present various methodological approaches to quantifying impairment in skeletonized and mummified remains. This volume serves to engage scholars from many disciplines in our exploration of disability in the past, with particular emphasis on the bioarchaeological context.