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Days of Death, Days of Life

Ritual in the Popular Culture of Oaxaca

Kristin Norget author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Columbia University Press

Published:3rd Mar '06

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Days of Death, Days of Life cover

Kristin Norget explores the practice and meanings of death rituals in the popular culture of poor urban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. Norget's work offers an original perspective on the significance of the Day of the Dead and other Oaxacan ritual practices in shaping people's values and social identities. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Oaxacan neighborhoods, Norget includes vivid descriptions of Day of the Dead rituals.

Explores the practice and meanings of death rituals in poor urban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. This book provides descriptions of the Day of the Dead and other religious practices. It analyzes how the rites and beliefs associated with death shape and reflect poor Oaxacans' values and social identity.Kristin Norget explores the practice and meanings of death rituals in poor urban neighborhoods on the outskirts of the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca. Drawing on her extensive fieldwork in Oaxaca City, Norget provides vivid descriptions of the Day of the Dead and other popular religious practices. She analyzes how the rites and beliefs associated with death shape and reflect poor Oaxacans' values and social identity. Norget also considers the intimate relationship that is perceived to exist between the living and the dead in Oaxacan popular culture. She argues that popular death rituals, which lie largely outside the sanctioned practices of the Catholic Church, establish and reinforce an ethical view of the world in which the dead remain with the living and in which the poor (as opposed to the privileged classes) do right by one another and their dead. For poor Oaxacans, these rituals affirm a set of social beliefs and practices, based on fairness, egalitarianism, and inclusiveness.

[A] Masterful study... Highly recommended. Choice Norget's book should find a welcomed place on many of our shelves. -- Jeffrey H. Cohen Journal of Anthropological Research Will be useful to scholars... [while] still perfectly appropriate for the lay reader. -- Juanita Garciagodoy Journal of Religion

ISBN: 9780231136891

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

336 pages