In this Book
- Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo
- Book
- 2015
- Published by: Duke University Press
- Series: Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People
-
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
summary
In Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performances of the BisiKongo people of the Lower Congo to show how their gestures, dances, and spirituality are critical in mobilizing social and political action. Conceiving of the body as the center of analysis, a catalyst for social action, and as a conduit for the social construction of reality, Covington-Ward focuses on specific flash points in the last ninety years of Congo's troubled history, when embodied performance was used to stake political claims, foster dissent, and enforce power. In the 1920s Simon Kimbangu started a Christian prophetic movement based on spirit-induced trembling, which swept through the Lower Congo, subverting Belgian colonial authority. Following independence, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko required citizens to dance and sing nationalist songs daily as a means of maintaining political control. More recently, embodied performance has again stoked reform, as nationalist groups such as Bundu dia Kongo advocate for a return to precolonial religious practices and non-Western gestures such as traditional greetings. In exploring these embodied expressions of Congolese agency, Covington-Ward provides a framework for understanding how embodied practices transmit social values, identities, and cultural history throughout Africa and the diaspora.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- Introduction: Gesture and Power
- pp. 1-34
- I. Performative Encounters, Political Bodies
- II. Spirits, Bodies, and Performance in Belgian Congo
- III. Civil Religion and Performed Politics in Postcolonial Congo
- IV. Re-Creating the Past, Performing the Future
- References
- pp. 253-274
Additional Information
ISBN
9780822374848
Related ISBN(s)
9780822360209, 9780822360360, 9781478091264
MARC Record
OCLC
1103683335
Pages
299
Launched on MUSE
2019-06-24
Language
English
Open Access
Yes
Creative Commons
CC-BY-NC-ND
Copyright
2016