Engaging the Spirit World

Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Southeast Asia
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-85745-358-7
Verlag: Berghahn Books

Buch, Englisch, Band 5, 238 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 512 g

Reihe: Asian Anthropologies

In many parts of the contemporary world, spirit beliefs and practices have taken on a pivotal role in addressing the discontinuities and uncertainties of modern life. The myriad ways in which devotees engage the spirit world show the tremendous creative potential of these practices and their innate adaptability to changing times and circumstances. Through in-depth anthropological case studies from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, the contributors to this book investigate the role and impact of different social, political, and economic dynamics in the reconfiguration of local spirit worlds in modern Southeast Asia. Their findings contribute to the re-enchantment debate by revealing that the “spirited modernities” that have emerged in the process not only embody a distinct feature of the contemporary moment, but also invite a critical rethinking of the concept of modernity itself.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Endres, Kirsten W.

Lauser, Andrea

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Kultur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations

Preface

Introduction: Multivocal Arenas of Modern Enchantment in Southeast Asia

Kirsten W. Endres and Andrea Lauser

Chapter 1. Can things reach the dead? The Ontological Status of Objects and the Study of Lao Buddhist Rituals for the Spirits of the Deceased

Patrice Ladwig

Chapter 2. Spirited Warriors: Conspiracy and Protection on Lombok

Kari Telle

Chapter 3. From the Mystical to the Molecular: Modernity, Martial Arts and Agency in Java

Lee Wilson

Chapter 4. Changing spirits’ Identities? Rethinking the Four Palaces’ Spirit Representations in the Context of Social and Political Changes in Northern Vietnam

Claire Chauvet

Chapter 5. Gods, Gifts, Markets, and Superstition: Spirited Consumption from Korea to Vietnam

Laurel Kendall

Chapter 6. Contests of Commemoration: Virgin War Martyrs, State Memorials, and the Invocation of the Spirit World in Contemporary Vietnam

Kirsten W. Endres and Andrea Lauser

Chapter 7. Trans-ethnic Cosmologies that Won’t Go Away: Keramat Symbolisms in Malaysian Capitalist Sacralization

Beng-Lan Goh

Chapter 8. Being a Spirit Medium in Contemporary Burma

Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière

Chapter 9. Reconfigurations of the Manora Ancestral Worship and Spirit Possession in Southern Thailand

Alexander Horstmann

Chapter 10. The Horror of the Modern: Violation, Violence, and the Rampage of Urban Youths in the Contemporary Thai Ghost Films

Pattana Kitiarsa

Notes on Contributors

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Lauser, Andrea
Andrea Lauser is Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany. She is a member of and lecturer in a new area studies network “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast-Asia,” composed of the Southeast Asia departments of Hamburg, Berlin, Muenster, Heidelberg and Göttingen, and funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

Endres, Kirsten W.
Kirsten W. Endres is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of Research Group at Department II, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. Her monograph, Performing the Divine: Mediums, Markets and Modernity in Urban Vietnam (2011), examines the flourishing of urban spirit mediumship as part of the recent revival of popular religion in Vietnam.

Kirsten W. Endres is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of Research Group at Department II, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. Her monograph, Performing the Divine: Mediums, Markets and Modernity in Urban Vietnam (2011), examines the flourishing of urban spirit mediumship as part of the recent revival of popular religion in Vietnam.