Diaspora Conversions: Black Carib Religion and the Recovery of Africa (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520249707)

By joining a diaspora, a society may begin to change its religious, ethnic, and even racial identifications by rethinking its "pasts." This pioneering multisite ethnography explores how this phenomenon is affecting the remarkable religion of the Garifuna, historically known as the Black Caribs, from the Central American coast of the Caribbean. It is estimated that one-third of the Garifuna have migrated to New York City over the past fifty years. Paul Christopher Johnson compares Garifuna spirit possession rituals performed in Honduran villages with those conducted in New York, and what emerges is a compelling picture of how the Garifuna engage ancestral spirits across multiple diasporic horizons. His study sheds new light on the ways diasporic religions around the world creatively plot itineraries of spatial memory that at once recover and remold their histories.

Author: Paul Christopher Johnson
ISBN-10: 0520249704
ISBN-13: 9780520249707
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 09/03/2007
Pages: 343
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.67w x 0.81d