The Pot-King

The Body and Technologies of Power
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-15217-5
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 17, 326 Seiten, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 545 g

Reihe: African Social Studies Series

The king of Mankon, in the western highlands of Cameroon, is an agricultural engineer by training, a businessman, and a prominent politician on the national stage. He partakes in the “return of the kings” in the forefront of an African public space. This book analyses the principles of the sacred kingship which lie at the core of the king’s different roles. While showing that the king’s body acts as a container of bodily substances transformed into unifying ancestral life-essence by appropriate means, and bestowed upon its subjects, it develops an innovative approach to bodily and material cultures as an essential component of the technologies of power. In so doing, it departs significantly from previous approaches to sacred kingship.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Warnier, Jean-Pierre

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Regionalwissenschaften, Regionalstudien

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1. The human flesh
Chapter 2. The subjects as containers
Chapter 3. The skin-citizens
Chapter 4. “Smoke must be kept in inside the house”
Chapter 5. The gifts of the dead monarchs
Chapter 6. The closure of the country
Chapter 7. The king’s three bodies
Chapter 8. The royal excrement
Chapter 9. Unbreakable vital piggy-banks
Chapter 10. De-sexualized bachelors
Chapter 11. Theoretical question in bodily/material cultures

Über Autor(innen)

J.-P. Warnier, Ph.D. (Anthropology, 1975) University of Pennsylvania, is Emeritus Professor in Paris. His work concerns material culture and Cameroon. He has published (with J.-F. Bayart, eds.) Matière à politique: le pouvoir, les choses et les corps. CERI, 2004).