This reissue of ''Affecting Performance'' makes
available a major work in performance studies,
linguistic anthropology, ritual and symbolic studies,
and African studies. A classic study widely used in the
classroom, the book examines how ceremonial performance
works and the contradictory dynamics of gender and
ethnicity in Okiek initiation ceremonies in
Kenya.Combining discourse analysis, semiotics, history,
political economy, symbolic interpretation, and gender
studies, Corinne Kratz examines the power of ritual to
produce social transformation and explores how children
are made into adults through initiation rites. Taking
girls' passage into womanhood as her topic, Kratz
considers dramatic structure, costume, song, ritual
space, and the discourse, rhetoric, and poetics of
ceremonial performance. Based on decades of research
with the Okiek of Kenya, ''Affecting Performance''
demonstrates how representations of the central themes
of initiation--gender relations and cultural
identity--probe the tensions and contradictions that
characterize relations between women and men, young and
old, and the Okiek and their neighbors. Long-term
fieldwork and extensive interviews with Okiek women and
men of several generations enable Kratz to situate Okiek
ceremonies culturally and historically. She provides a
rich description of changes in Okiek life and ceremonies
from 1900 to 1990. Kratz's sensitive and detailed
analysis of ritual language and ritual action provides
an important synthesis and critical perspective for
understanding ceremonial structure and performance and
for interpreting the efficacy of ritual performance both
from actors' and observers' viewpoints. |
|