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12%OFFMorten Axel Pedersen - Not Quite Shamans: Spirit Worlds and Political Lives in Northern Mongolia - 9780801476204 - V9780801476204
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Not Quite Shamans: Spirit Worlds and Political Lives in Northern Mongolia

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Description for Not Quite Shamans: Spirit Worlds and Political Lives in Northern Mongolia Paperback. Series: Culture and Society After Socialism. Num Pages: 272 pages, 21. BIC Classification: 1FPM; JHMC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 233 x 157 x 16. Weight in Grams: 442.

The forms of contemporary society and politics are often understood to be diametrically opposed to any expression of the supernatural; what happens when those forms are themselves regarded as manifestations of spirits and other occult phenomena? In Not Quite Shamans, Morten Axel Pedersen explores how the Darhad people of Northern Mongolia's remote Shishged Valley have understood and responded to the disruptive transition to postsocialism by engaging with shamanic beliefs and practices associated with the past.

For much of the twentieth century, Mongolia’s communist rulers attempted to eradicate shamanism and the shamans who once served as spiritual guides and community leaders. ... Read more

In the ideal version of traditional Darhad shamanism, shamans can control when and for what purpose their souls travel, whether to other bodies, landscapes, or worlds. Conversely, caught between uncontrollable spiritual powers and an excessive display of physical force, the "not-quite-shamans" embody the chaotic forms—the free market, neoliberal reform, and government corruption—that have created such upheaval in peoples’ lives. As an experimental ethnography of recent political and economic transformations in Mongolia through the defamiliarizing prism of shamans and their lack, Not Quite Shamans is an attempt to write about as well as theorize postsocialism, and shamanism, in a new way.

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Product Details

Publisher
Cornell University Press United States
Number of pages
272
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2011
Series
Culture and Society After Socialism
Condition
New
Weight
422g
Number of Pages
264
Place of Publication
Ithaca, United States
ISBN
9780801476204
SKU
V9780801476204
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1

About Morten Axel Pedersen
Morten Axel Pedersen is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen.

Reviews for Not Quite Shamans: Spirit Worlds and Political Lives in Northern Mongolia
Not Quite Shamans is a beautifully written, rich, and detailed ethnographic account of a remote corner of postsocialist Mongolia. Empathetic but never apologetic, Pedersen presents a balanced account of what was certainly a very arduous, evenlife-threatening, fieldwork research.... [N]ot Quite Shamans will certainly become a seminal text, not only for Mongolian and Inner Asian specialists but indeed as a detailed ... Read more

Goodreads reviews for Not Quite Shamans: Spirit Worlds and Political Lives in Northern Mongolia


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