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The Sakalava Poiesis of History: Realizing the Past Through Spirit Possession in Madagascar
Author(s) -
Lambek Michael
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1998.25.2.106
Subject(s) - possession (linguistics) , chronotope , historicity (philosophy) , literature , history , philosophy , aesthetics , sociology , epistemology , art , law , linguistics , politics , political science
Using a broadly Aristotelian framework I propose poetic form as a means for distinguishing historicities. I analyze Sakalava performances of possession by royal ancestors as the creative production of a kind of history, distinguish it from a dominant occidental model of history, and elaborate the chronotope on which it is based and the heteroglossia and historical consciousness it enables. I argue that Sakalava spirit possession has a strongly realist bent and suggest the interest of poiesis for anthropological analysis and comparison more generally, [historical production, historicity, spirit possession, mimesis, poiesis, Aristotle, Madagascar]