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BestsellerE-book
Author Grillo, Laura S., 1956- author.

Title An Intimate Rebuke : Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa / Laura S. Grillo.

Publication Info. Durham : Duke University Press, 2018.
Baltimore, Md. : Project MUSE, 2019.
©2018.

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (328 pages).
text file
Series The religious cultures of African and African diaspora people
Book collections on Project MUSE.
Religious cultures of African and African diaspora people.
Contents 1. Genies, witches, and women : locating female powers -- 2. Matrifocal morality : FGP and the foundation of "home" -- 3. Gender and resistance : the "strategic essentialism" of FGP -- 4. Founding knowledge/binding power : the moral foundations of ethnicity and alliance -- 5. Women at the checkpoint : challenging the forces of civil war -- 6. Violation and deployment : FGP in politics in Côte d'Ivoire -- 7. Memory, memorialization, and morality -- Conclusion : an intimate rebuke: a local critique in the global postcolony.
Summary Throughout West African societies, at times of social crises, postmenopausal women--the Mothers--make a ritual appeal to their innate moral authority. The seat of this power is the female genitalia. Wielding branches or pestles, they strip naked and slap their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. In An Intimate Rebuke Laura S. Grillo draws on fieldwork in Côte d'Ivoire that spans three decades to illustrate how these rituals of Female Genital Power (FGP) constitute religious and political responses to abuses of power. When deployed in secret, FGP operates as spiritual warfare against witchcraft; in public, it serves as a political activism. During Côte d'Ivoire's civil wars FGP challenged the immoral forces of both rebels and the state. Grillo shows how the ritual potency of the Mothers' nudity and the conjuration of their sex embodies a moral power that has been foundational to West African civilization. Highlighting the remarkable continuity of the practice across centuries while foregrounding the timeliness of FGP in contemporary political resistance, Grillo shifts perspectives on West African history, ethnography, comparative religious studies, and postcolonial studies.
Local Note Project Muse Project Muse Open Access
Access Open Access Unrestricted online access
Subject Religion.
Generative organs, Female -- Religious aspects.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations.
Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography.
Femmes âgees -- Côte-d'Ivoire -- Vie religieuse.
Femmes âgees -- Activite politique -- Côte-d'Ivoire.
Organes genitaux femelles -- Aspect symbolique -- Côte-d'Ivoire.
Organes genitaux femelles -- Aspect religieux.
Organes genitaux femelles -- Aspect politique -- Côte-d'Ivoire.
Older women -- Religious life -- Côte d'Ivoire.
Older women.
Religious life.
Côte d'Ivoire.
Older women -- Political activity -- Côte d'Ivoire.
Political participation.
Generative organs, Female -- Symbolic aspects -- Côte d'Ivoire.
Generative organs, Female.
Generative organs, Female -- Religious aspects.
Generative organs, Female -- Political aspects -- Côte d'Ivoire.
Côte d'Ivoire -- Religion.
Genre/Form Electronic books. .
Added Author Project Muse, distributor.
ISBN 9781478001553
9781478091639
9781478001201
9781478002635
1478001208
1478002638