{"product_id":"the-cooking-of-history-how-not-to-study-afro-cuban-religion-9780226019567","title":"The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Stephan Palmié\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: University of Chicago Press\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Anthropology - Cultural \u0026amp; Social\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver a lifetime of studying Cuban Santería and other religions related to Orisha worship--a practice also found among the Yoruba in West Africa--Stephan Palmié has grown progressively uneasy with the assumptions inherent in the very term Afro-Cuban religion. In \u003ci\u003eThe Cooking of History\u003c\/i\u003e he provides a comprehensive analysis of these assumptions, in the process offering an incisive critique both of the anthropology of religion and of scholarship on the cultural history of the Afro-Atlantic World. Understood largely through its rituals and ceremonies, Santería and related religions have been a challenge for anthropologists to link to a hypothetical African past. But, Palmié argues, precisely by relying on the notion of an aboriginal African past, and by claiming to authenticate these religions via their findings, anthropologists--some of whom have converted to these religions--have exerted considerable influence upon contemporary practices. Critiquing widespread and damaging simplifications that posit religious practices as stable and self-contained, Palmié calls for a drastic new approach that properly situates cultural origins within the complex social environments and scholarly fields in which they are investigated.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Chicago Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47890894291095,"sku":"9780226019567","price":3450.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780226019567.webp?v=1781181715","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/the-cooking-of-history-how-not-to-study-afro-cuban-religion-9780226019567","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}