Feedback

X
Gesture and Power

Gesture and Power

en

0 Ungluers have Faved this Work
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 flashpoints 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 pre-colonial 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.This title was made Open Access by libraries from around the world through Knowledge Unlatched.

This book is included in DOAB.

Why read this book? Have your say.

You must be logged in to comment.

Rights Information

Are you the author or publisher of this work? If so, you can claim it as yours by registering as an Unglue.it rights holder.

Downloads

This work has been downloaded 651 times via unglue.it ebook links.
  1. 33 - pdf (CC BY-NC-ND) at OAPEN Library.
  2. 161 - pdf (CC BY-NC-ND) at Unglue.it.

Keywords

  • anthropology
  • Body language
  • Bundu dia Kongo
  • Communication
  • Congo (Democratic Republic)
  • Congo Basin
  • Dance
  • Democratic Republic of the Congo
  • Kingdom of Kongo
  • Kinshasa
  • Kongo (African people)
  • Kongo people
  • KUnlatched
  • Luozi
  • Mobutu Sese Seko
  • religious studies
  • Simon Kimbangu
  • Social aspects
  • Zaïre

Links

DOI: 10.1215/9780822374848

Editions

edition cover
edition cover

Share

Copy/paste this into your site: