Gesture and Power

Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo

Yolanda Covington-Ward author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Duke University Press

Published:30th Dec '15

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Gesture and Power cover

In Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performances of the BisiKongo people of the Lower Congo to show how their gestures, dances, and spirituality are critical in mobilizing social and political action. Conceiving of the body as the center of analysis, a catalyst for social action, and as a conduit for the social construction of reality, Covington-Ward focuses on specific flash points in the last ninety years of Congo's troubled history, when embodied performance was used to stake political claims, foster dissent, and enforce power. In the 1920s Simon Kimbangu started a Christian prophetic movement based on spirit-induced trembling, which swept through the Lower Congo, subverting Belgian colonial authority. Following independence, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko required citizens to dance and sing nationalist songs daily as a means of maintaining political control. More recently, embodied performance has again stoked reform, as nationalist groups such as Bundu dia Kongo advocate for a return to precolonial religious practices and non-Western gestures such as traditional greetings. In exploring these embodied expressions of Congolese agency, Covington-Ward provides a framework for understanding how embodied practices transmit social values, identities, and cultural history throughout Africa and the diaspora. 

"Gesture and Power is an extraordinary work. . . . [It] provides serious and fertile historical and ethnographic material and offers a solid methodological format and an insightful perspective on African embodied politics and religious practices in both the past and the present." -- Annalisa Butticci * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
"[Covington-Ward's] attention to the microdynamics of gesture brings the study of rite and ritual into the domain of the evetyday and highlights the profundity of common acts as makers of religious and political meaning. In doing so, she raises questions about position and positionality that are pertinent beyond the powerful dynamics of religion and politics in Congo." -- Emma Wild-Wood * Church History *
"A tremendous amount of labor went into this study and the end product is a compelling, engaging, intelligent, and enjoyable text, a fine scholarly contribution to the literature on religion in Central Africa. Small wonder thus that the book is adorned with glowing endorsements on the back cover by such distinguished anthropologists of African religion as Paul Stoller and Bennetta Jules-Rosette." -- Terry Rey * Religion *
"A fine blend of Congo’s colonial history, an impressive page of Cultural anthropology, an introduction to African body/performance studies, and a crisp work on sociology of religion. . . . One of the finest works on ethnography given its style of description, rich theoretical background, and methodology." -- Adfer Rashid Shah * African Studies Quarterly *

ISBN: 9780822360360

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 431g

304 pages