Unpacking the New: Critical Perspectives on Cultural Syncretization in Africa and BeyondAfeosemime Unuose Adogame, Magnus Echtler, Ulf Vierke In a world supposedly characterized by the production of new differences and cultural permutations resulting from the twin processes of globalization and cultural syncretisation, hardly anything has remained as obscure and theoretically under-theorized as the very notion of the "new" itself. An inherent relativity often accompanies any contemplation of what is new or old, as well as the question at which point the old turns into the new. Syncretism as both process and description hinges largely on the assumption and premise that what is observed has appropriately or inappropriately mixed categories - culture, religion, language - that are intrinsically alien to each other. Such a syncretic constellation is bound to result in something that may be considered new. Any definition of "syncretism", the syncretisation process and the appropriation of the notion "new" as useful heuristic tools must indeed be located within specific local contexts, as such terms are unlikely to serve as adequate descriptions of homogenous sets of phenomena. Syncretism as a process is intertwined with processes of contextualization. Against this backdrop, this book seeks to unravel and demystify the ideology of the new on the basis of concrete case studies from various regions across Africa and beyond. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 27 | |
Syncretists Fundamentalists and Scholars Compared | 47 |
Lessons from the Field | 71 |
Conceptual Blending in Language Cognition and Culture Towards | 93 |
A Linguistic Perspective | 125 |
Local Sitting and Transnational Thinking | 143 |
Some | 175 |
Syncretism or Creativity in Vodun Art | 201 |
Hybrid Discourse in Swahili Literature | 225 |
Products of Modernity and their | 271 |
African Pentecostalism | 305 |
The Faith Movement across | 331 |
The Development of Syncretistic Rituals in | 349 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adogame alienation American English anti-syncretism appropriation Arabic attributes baraza Bayreuth become bicycle blended concepts buibui century charismatic Christian chromolithographs church coast colonial conceptual blending context cosmopolitan creole creole languages creolization cultural syncretism defined diaspora dimension discourse Droogers European everyday example expert systems fundamentalists Ghana global globalisation Hausa Hausa word Hindu hybridity ideas identity ideological images important India influence institutions interaction Islam Kumasi language linguistic London lyric Makunduchi Mami Wata marriage McWhorter means mixing modernisation Mwaka festival Nigerian English concept parameters Pentecostal perspective political popular products of modernity purity question RCCG referents relations religion ritual role Routledge sense sexual Shaw simplification social society space specific spirits Stewart Stone Town structures Swahili syncretism syncretism and fundamentalism syncretistic taarab Tanzania things tion Topan traditional University of Bayreuth Vodun West African wheelchair women Zanzibar