Spirit Service

—Eric Montgomery is based in East Lansing, MI —Christian Vannier is based in Flint, MI —Tim Landry is based in Hartford, CT — The editors of this volume are early in their careers but are making clear and valuable contributions to the field. They are rising stars in a field where it is difficult to make a mark, and they are generous in their inclusion of precariously-positioned scholars and docrotal candidates in this work. — As religious systems, Vodún, Vodu, and Vodou share an open adaptability which encourages creativity, experimentation, and integration. This adaptability allows the conversation in this collection to move beyond "Africanness" and "European influences" to instead examine how political economies, histories, ritual practices, and migrations produce and reproduce the spirits and the values and practices that surround them. — The collection will appeal to scholars and students of anthropology, sociology, Atlantic and diasporic history, African studies, Caribbean studies, anthropology of religion, and global studies. While there are few courses which focus particularly on Vodún and Vodou throughout an entire semester, each chapter has been written to appeal to course instructors and to upper-level undergraduates for inclusion in course packets. For this reason, the collection would also appeal to those with a general interest in the topic.

Known in the Dominican Republic and Togo as Vodu, in Benin as Vodún, and in Haiti as Vodou, West African religion has, for hundreds of years, served as a repository of sacred knowledge while simultaneously evolving in response to human experience and globalization.

Spirit Service: Vodún and Vodou in the African Atlantic World explores this dynamic religion, its mobility, and its place in the modern world. By examining the systems—ritual practices, community-based spirit veneration, and spiritual means of securing opportunity and well-being—alongside the individuals who worship, this rich collection offers the first comprehensive ethnographic study of West African spirit service on a broad scale. Contributors consider social encounters between African/Haitian practitioners and European / North American spiritual seekers, economies and histories, funerary rites and spirit possessions, and examinations of gender and materiality.

Offering much-needed perspective on this historically disparaged religion, Spirit Service reminds us all that the gods are growing, assimilating, and demanding recognition and respect.

Introduction, by Christian Vannier and Timothy R. Landry
Part I: Encounter
1. Vodou Genesis: Africans and the Making of a National Religion in Saint-Domingue, by Terry Rey
2. Universalism and Syncretism in Beninese Vodún, by Douglas J. Falen
3. Crossing Currents: Gorovodu and Yewevodu in Contemporary Togo, by Eric James Montgomery
4. A Prayer for a Muslim Spirit: Islam in Gorovodu, by Christian Vannier
5. Where Have All the Ounsi Gone?, by Karen Richman
6. Sailing between Local and Global: Vodou in the Modern and Contemporary Arts of Haiti, by Natacha Giafferi-Dombre
Part II: Engagement
7. Taking Hold of a Faith, by Jeffrey E. Anderson
8. The Physic(s)ality of Vodún and the (Mis)behavior of Matter, by Venise N. Adjibodou
9. Vodou Skins: Making Bodily Surfaces Social in Haitian Vodou Infant-Care, by Alissa M. Jordan
10. Spirited Forests and the West African Forest Complex, by Timothy R. Landry
11. Vodou, an Inclusive Epistemology: Towards A Queer Eco-Theology of Liberation, by Nixon Cleophat
12. Necroscape and Diaspora: Making Ancestors in Haitian Vodou, by Elizabeth McAlister
13. Conclusion: Global Vodún and Vodou: Encounter and Engagement, by Eric James Montgomery and Timothy R. Landry
Index