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Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo

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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 flashpoints 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.

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Series Title

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Call Number

301 COV g

Publisher

Durham : Duke University Press., 2018

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Language

ISBN/ISSN

9780822374848

Classification

301

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

Ed. 1

Subject(s)

Anthropology
Democracy

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Statement of Responsibility

Yolanda Covington-Ward

Other Information

Cataloger

umi

Source

https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/30106

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