Download or read book Gesture and Power written by Yolanda Covington-Ward and published by Duke University Press Books. This book was released on 2015-12-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Religious Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo written by Roger B. Alfani and published by Religion and Society in Africa. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religious Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo analyzes the contributions of three churches at both the leadership and the grassroots levels to conflict transformation in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. While states have long been considered main actors in addressing domestic conflicts, this book demonstrates that religious actors can play a significant role in peacebuilding efforts. In addition, rather than focusing exclusively on top-down approaches to conflict resolution, Religious Peacebuilding in the Democratic Republic of Congo incorporates viewpoints from both leaders of the Catholic, 3ème Communauté Baptiste au Centre de l'Afrique and Arche de l'Alliance in Goma and grassroots members of these three churches.
Download or read book African Cosmology of the B ntu K ngo written by Kimbwandènde Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau and published by Athelia Henrietta Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Life is fundamentally a process of perpetual and mutual communication; and to communicate is to emit and to receive waves and radiations (minika ye minienie). This process of, receiving and releasing or passing them on (tambula ye tambikisa) is the key to human beings game of survival. A person is perpetually bathed by radiations' weight, (zitu kia minienie). The weight (zitu/demo) of radiations may have a negative as well as positive impact on any tiny being, for example a person who represents the most vibrating: "kolo" (knot) of relationships." "The following expressions are very common among the Bantu, in general, and among the Kongo in particular, which prove to us the antiquity of these concepts in the African continent; Our businesses are waved/shaken; our health is waved/shaken; what we possess is waved/shaken; the communities are waved/shaken: Where are these (negative) waves coming from (Salu bieto bieti nikunwa; mavimpi nikunwa; biltuvwidi nikunwa; makanda nikunwa: Kwe kutukanga minika miami)?" "For the Bantu, a person lives and moves within an ocean of waves/radiations. One is sensitive or immune to them. To be sensitive to waves is to be able to react negatively or positively to those waves/forces. But to be immune to surrounding waves/forces, is to be less reactive to them or not at all. These differences account for varying degrees in the process of knowing/learning among individuals" --BOOK Cover.
Download or read book Kimbanguism written by Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot, a sociologist and son of a Kimbanguist pastor, provides a fresh and insightful perspective on African Kimbanguism and its traditions. The largest of the African-initiated churches, Kimbanguism claims seventeen million followers worldwide. Like other such churches, it originated out of black African resistance to colonization in the early twentieth century and advocates reconstructing blackness by appropriating the parameters of Christian identity. Mokoko Gampiot provides a contextual history of the religion’s origins and development, compares Kimbanguism with other African-initiated churches and with earlier movements of political and spiritual liberation, and explores the implicit and explicit racial dynamics of Christian identity that inform church leaders and lay practitioners. He explains how Kimbanguists understand their own blackness as both a curse and a mission and how that underlying belief continuously spurs them to reinterpret the Bible through their own prisms. Drawing from an unprecedented investigation into Kimbanguism’s massive body of oral traditions—recorded sermons, participant observations of church services and healing sessions, and translations of hymns—and informed throughout by Mokoko Gampiot’s intimate knowledge of the customs and language of Kimbanguism, this is an unparalleled theological and sociological analysis of a unique African Christian movement.
Download or read book Congo Spirituality written by Imelda Castro and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2021-04-23 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book helps readers to better understand human life in Congo. It is 1960. Almost all the black people of Congo are with great hope and joy. On June 30th they will receive Independence.
Download or read book Religion Colonization and Decolonization in Congo 1885 1960 Religion colonisation et d colonisation au Congo 1885 1960 written by Vincent Viaene and published by Leuven University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-30 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Religion in today’s Democratic Republic of Congo has many faces: from the overflowing seminaries and Marian shrines of the Catholic Church to the Islamic brotherhoods, from the healers of Kimban-guism to the televangelism of the booming Pentecostalist churches in the great cities, from the Orthodox communities of Kasai to the ‘invisible’ Mai Mai warriors in the brousse of Kivu. During the colonial period religion was no less central to people’s lives than it is today. More surprisingly, behind the seemingly smooth facade of missions linked closely to imperial power, faith and worship were already marked by diversity and dynamism, tying the Congo into broader African and global movements. The contributions in this book provide insight into the multifaceted history of the interaction between religion and colonization. The authors outline the institutional political framework, and focus on the challenge that old and new forms of slavery entailed for the missions. The atrocities committed at the time of the Congo Free State became an existential question for young Christian communities. In the Belgian Congo after 1908, more structural forms of colonial violence remained a key issue marking religious experiences. And yet, religion also acted as a bridge. The authors emphasize the role intermediaries such as catechists or medical assistants played in the African “appropriation” of Christianity. They examine the complex interaction with indigenous religious beliefs and practices, and zoom in on the part religions played in the independence movement, as well as on their reaction to independence itself. Coming at a moment when Belgium confronts its colonial past, this volume provides a timely reassessment of religion as a key factor.
Download or read book African Religions written by Jacob K. Olupona and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book connects traditional religions to the thriving religious activity in Africa today.
Download or read book The Kingdom of Kongo written by John Kelly Thornton and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Medicine Religion Spirituality written by Dorothea Lüddeckens and published by transcript Verlag. This book was released on 2018-11-30 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In modern societies the functional differentiation of medicine and religion is the predominant paradigm. Contemporary therapeutic practices and concepts in healing systems, such as Transpersonal Psychology, Ayurveda, as well as Buddhist and Anthroposophic medicine, however, are shaped by medical as well as religious or spiritual elements. This book investigates configurations of the entanglement between medicine, religion, and spirituality in Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa. How do political and legal conditions affect these healing systems? How do they relate to religious and scientific discourses? How do therapeutic practitioners position themselves between medicine and religion, and what is their appeal for patients?
Download or read book Death and the Invisible Powers written by Simon Bockie and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[Bockie's] description of Kongo culture is vivid, beautifullyclear, and absolutely authentic, as only a native could make it.... I don't know ofanything of its kind that is both as good, ethnographically, and asreadable." -- Wyatt MacGaffey "Simon Bockie haswritten an engaging, often personal account of the views and behaviors surroundingdeath in his own society, the Kongo of Lower Zaire, northern Angola, and theCongo." -- Cahiers d'Etudes africaines ..". excellentbook of Kongo religious life and thought... " --Religion "It is a book that is remarkably well written, bothfor its readability and for its explanatory value.... the book is a superb startingplace for understanding Kongo religion, and will work as an introduction to Africanreligion in general as well." -- International Journal of African HistoricalStudies ..". an excellent introduction for anyone seeking tounderstand Kongo traditional culture and thought." --Oshun Rich in anecdote and case histories, Death and the InvisiblePowers is a personal account of the spiritual life of the Kongo people. It describesthe ancient traditions that nourish a culture whose name symbolizes the heart ofCentral Africa.
Download or read book Seekers and Things written by Peter Lambertz and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2017-12-29 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the intricate presence of a Japanese new religion (Sekai Kyûseikyô) in the densely populated and primarily Christian environment of Kinshasa (DR Congo), this ethnographic study offers a practitioner-orientated perspective to create a localized picture of religious globalization. Guided by an aesthetic approach to religion, the study moves beyond a focus limited to text and offers insights into the role of religious objects, spiritual technologies and aesthetic repertoires in the production and politics of difference. The boundaries between non-Christian religious minorities and the largely Christian public sphere involve fears and suspicion of "magic" and "occult sciences".
Download or read book Kongo Political Culture written by Wyatt MacGaffey and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2000-03-22 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lutete devoted much of his attention to aspects of Kongo ritual and religious belief, including minkisi and the rituals for the installation of chiefs. The original text of what he had to say about chiefship is printed, with translation notes. The work of other informants is also used."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Kongo Power and Majesty written by Alisa LaGamma and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2015-09-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating account of the effects of turbulent history on one of Africa’s most storied kingdoms, Kongo: Power and Majesty presents over 170 works of art from the Kingdom of Kongo (an area that includes present-day Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola). The book covers 400 years of Kongolese culture, from the fifteenth century, when Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian merchants and missionaries brought Christianity to the region, to the nineteenth, when engagement with Europe had turned to colonial incursion and the kingdom dissolved under the pressures of displacement, civil war, and the devastation of the slave trade. The works of art—which range from depictions of European iconography rendered in powerful, indigenous forms to fearsome minkondi, or power figures—serve as an assertion of enduring majesty in the face of upheaval, and richly illustrate the book’s powerful thesis.
Download or read book Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora written by Linda M. Heywood and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Encyclopedia of African Religion written by Molefi Kete Asante and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2009 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collects almost five hundred entries that cover the African response to spirituality, taboos, ethics, sacred space, and objects.
Download or read book Introduction to Congo written by Gilad James, PhD and published by Gilad James Mystery School. This book was released on with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Democratic Republic of Congo, commonly known as Congo, is a central African country that is rich in natural resources such as coal, cobalt, and copper. It is a country that has been ravaged by colonialism, civil wars, and resource exploitation. It is home to over 80 million people, and despite being one of the most resource-rich countries in the world, the majority of the population lives in poverty. Congo is the second-largest country in Africa, and it shares borders with nine other African countries. Its history is complex, and it has seen colonization by the Belgians, which lasted for over 75 years, and multiple civil wars that have resulted in the loss of millions of lives. Today, the country is still struggling with political instability, corruption, and a struggling economy. However, it has also seen some progress in recent years, with peaceful transitions of power and a growing economy. The challenges in Congo are numerous, but there is also hope that the country can overcome them and fulfill its potential.
Download or read book How God Works written by David DeSteno and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on a wealth of new evidence, pioneering research psychologist David DeSteno shows why religious practices and rituals are so beneficial to those who follow them—and to anyone, regardless of their faith (or lack thereof). Scientists are beginning to discover what believers have known for a long time: the rewards that a religious life can provide. For millennia, people have turned to priests, rabbis, imams, shamans, and others to help them deal with issues of grief and loss, birth and death, morality and meaning. In this absorbing work, DeSteno reveals how numerous religious practices from around the world improve emotional and physical well-being. With empathy and rigor, DeSteno chronicles religious rites and traditions from cradle to grave. He explains how the Japanese rituals surrounding childbirth help strengthen parental bonds with children. He describes how the Apache Sunrise Ceremony makes teenage girls better able to face the rigors of womanhood. He shows how Buddhist meditation reduces hostility and increases compassion. He demonstrates how the Jewish practice of sitting shiva comforts the bereaved. And much more. DeSteno details how belief itself enhances physical and mental health. But you don’t need to be religious to benefit from the trove of wisdom that religion has to offer. Many items in religion’s “toolbox” can help the body and mind whether or not one believes. How God Works offers advice on how to incorporate many of these practices to help all of us live more meaningful, successful, and satisfying lives.
