
Island in the Stream
An Ethnographic History of Mayotte
Michael Lambek(Author)
University of Toronto Press
Published on 29. October 2018
Book
Hardback
376 pages
978-1-4875-0391-8 (ISBN)
Description
Island in the Stream introduces an original genre of ethnographic history as it follows a community on Mayotte, an East African island in the Mozambique Channel, through eleven periods of fieldwork between 1975 and 2015. Over this 40-year span Mayotte shifted from a declining and neglected colonial backwater to a full d?partement of the French state. In a highly unusual postcolonial trajectory, citizens of Mayotte demanded this incorporation within France rather than joining the independent republic of the Comoros. The Malagasy-speaking Muslim villagers Michael Lambek encountered in 1975 practiced subsistence cultivation and lived without roads, schools, electricity, or running water; today they are educated citizens of the EU who travel regularly to metropolitan France and beyond.
Offering a series of ethnographic slices of life across time, Island in the Stream highlights community members' ethical engagement in their own history as they looked to the future, acknowledged the past, and engaged and transformed local forms of sociality, exchange, and ritual performance. This is a unique account of the changing horizons and historical consciousness of an African community and an intimate portrait of the inhabitants and their concerns, as well as a glimpse into the changing perspective of the ethnographer.
Offering a series of ethnographic slices of life across time, Island in the Stream highlights community members' ethical engagement in their own history as they looked to the future, acknowledged the past, and engaged and transformed local forms of sociality, exchange, and ritual performance. This is a unique account of the changing horizons and historical consciousness of an African community and an intimate portrait of the inhabitants and their concerns, as well as a glimpse into the changing perspective of the ethnographer.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 162 mm
Width: 236 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
690 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4875-0391-8 (9781487503918)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Michael Lambek is a Canada Research Chair and professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Scarborough.
Michael D. Jackson is a New Zealand poet and anthropologist who has taught in anthropology departments at Massey University, the Australian National University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Copenhagen. He is a religion professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, USA.
Michael D. Jackson is a New Zealand poet and anthropologist who has taught in anthropology departments at Massey University, the Australian National University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Copenhagen. He is a religion professor at Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, USA.
Content
List of Figures
Foreword by Michael Jackson
Note on Orthography
Glossary
Preface
Part One: Prelude
1 Introduction: The Presence of History
2 Village Life: Kinship, Community, and Islam, 1975 and After
3 Founding the Villages, before 1975
Part Two: Exchange, Celebration, Ceremony, through 1995
4 Citizenship and Sociality: Practising Equality, 1975-1976
5 Exchange, Time, and Person in Mayotte: The Structure and Destructuring of a Cultural System, 1975-1985
6 Localizing Islamic Performances in Mayotte, 1975-1995
Part Three: Dancing to the Music of Time, through 2001
7 Choking on the Qur'an and Other Consuming Parables, 1975-1992
8 Nuriaty, the Saint, and the Sultan: Virtuous Subject and Subjective Virtuoso of the Postmodern Colony, to 1995
9 The Saint, the Sea Monster, and an Invitation to a D?ner-dansant, to 2001
10 On the Move, through 2001
Part Four: Contingent Conviviality, through 2015
11 Marriage and Moral Horizons, 2015
12 Present Horizons, 2015
13 Summation: Mariam's Mirror
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Credits
Index
Foreword by Michael Jackson
Note on Orthography
Glossary
Preface
Part One: Prelude
1 Introduction: The Presence of History
2 Village Life: Kinship, Community, and Islam, 1975 and After
3 Founding the Villages, before 1975
Part Two: Exchange, Celebration, Ceremony, through 1995
4 Citizenship and Sociality: Practising Equality, 1975-1976
5 Exchange, Time, and Person in Mayotte: The Structure and Destructuring of a Cultural System, 1975-1985
6 Localizing Islamic Performances in Mayotte, 1975-1995
Part Three: Dancing to the Music of Time, through 2001
7 Choking on the Qur'an and Other Consuming Parables, 1975-1992
8 Nuriaty, the Saint, and the Sultan: Virtuous Subject and Subjective Virtuoso of the Postmodern Colony, to 1995
9 The Saint, the Sea Monster, and an Invitation to a D?ner-dansant, to 2001
10 On the Move, through 2001
Part Four: Contingent Conviviality, through 2015
11 Marriage and Moral Horizons, 2015
12 Present Horizons, 2015
13 Summation: Mariam's Mirror
Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Credits
Index