Power and Intimacy in the Christian Philippines

An anthropological study of everyday life in the lowland Philippines.

Fenella Cannell (Author)

9780521646222, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 March 1999

344 pages, 10 b/w illus. 1 map
22.8 x 15.3 x 2.3 cm, 0.55 kg

'… a meticulous, intricate and thought-provoking ethnographic study …' Aseasuk News

What kind of reciprocity exists between unequal partners? How can a 'culture' which makes no attempt to defend unchanging traditions be understood as such? In the Christian Philippines, inequalities - global and local - are negotiated through idioms of persuasion, reluctance and pity. Fenella Cannell's study suggests that these are the idioms of a culture which does not need to represent itself as immutable. Her account of Philippine spirit-mediumship, Catholicism, transvestite beauty contests, and marriage in Bicol calls for a reassessment of our understanding of South-East Asian modernity. Combining a strong theoretical interest in the anthropology of religion with a broader comparative attention to recent developments in South-East Asian studies, she offers a powerful alternative to existing interpretations of the relationship between culture and tradition in the region and beyond. This book addresses not only South-East Asianists, but all those with an interest in the anthropology of religion and post-colonial cultures. Power and Intimacy in the Christian Phillipines has won the Harry J. Benda prize for 2001.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Note on language and names
Introduction: mountains and plains
Part I. Marriage: 1. Marriage stories: speaking of reluctance and control
2. Kinship and the ritualisation of marriage
Part II. Healing and the Spirits: 3. Introduction: healing and the 'people who have nothing'
4. Spirit mediums and spirit-companions
5. Spirit mediums and seance forms: changing relations to the spirit world
6. Coda: the birthday-parties of the spirits
Part III. Saints and the Dead: 7. The living and the dead
8. The funeral of the 'dead Christ'
9. Kinship, reciprocity and devotions to the saints
Part IV. Beauty Contests: 10. Beauty and the idea of 'America'
11. Conclusion: oppression, pity and transformation
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]