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, 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]