• ISBN13: 9780748633197
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: Sociology and Anthropology
• Publisher: Edinburgh UP
• Publisher Imprint: Edinburgh
• Publication Date: August 6, 2007
• Pages: 256
• Original Price: GBP 90.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 500 grams
• BISAC Subject(s): Anthropology / Cultural & Social

About the Book How do those on the margins of modernity face the challenges of globalization? This book demonstrates that secrecy is one of the means by which a society on the fringe of modernity produces itself as locality. Focusing on initiation rituals, masked performances and modern art, this study shows that rituals and performances long deemed obsolete, serve the insertion of their performers in the world at their own terms. The Jola and Mandinko people of the Casamance region in Senegal have always used their rituals and performances to incorporate the impact of Islam, colonialism, capitalism, and contemporary politics. Their performances of secrecy have accommodated these modern powers and continue to do so today. The performers incorporate the modern and redefine modernity through secretive practices. Their traditions are not modern inventions, but traditional ways of dealing with modernity.

Ferdinand de Jong is Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of East Anglia