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This comparative study of African and Hindu popular religions in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago charts the development of religion in the Caribbean by analyzing the ways ecstatic forms of worship, enacted through trance performance and spirit mediumship, have adapted to capitalism and reconfigured themselves within the context of modernity.
Showing how diasporic traditions of West African Orisha Worship and South Asian Shakti Puja converged in their ritual adaptations to colonialism in the West Indies, as well as diverged politically within the context of postcolonial multiculturalism, Keith McNeal reveals the unexpected ways these traditions of trance performance have become both globalized and modernized.
The first book-length work to compare and contrast Afro- and Indo-Caribbean materials in a systematic and multidimensional manner, this volume makes fresh and innovative contributions to anthropology, religious studies, and the historiography of modernity.
By giving both religious subcultures and their intersections equal attention, McNeal offers a richly textured account of southern Caribbean cultural history and pursues important questions about the history and future of religion.
About the author
Keith E. McNeal is a Fulbright scholar with the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. His work has been published in a number of venues, including
Activating the Past: Historical Memory in the Black Atlantic, Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West, and the
Encyclopedia of Caribbean Religions.
