Religious 'speculation': the rise of Ifa cults and consumption in post-Soviet Cuba

With an ethnographic focus on the prestigious cult of Ifá, this article seeks to account for the recent effervescence of Afro-Cuban cult worship in urban Cuba. It is argued that, since worship involves a marked emphasis on ritual consumption, the cult's rise can be related to wider transformations that have taken place in the field of everyday consumption in Havana during the economic crisis that has followed the collapse of the Soviet bloc. In particular, Ifá has provided an arena for what habaneros call ‘especulación’, a style of conspicuous consumption that has become prevalent among so-called ‘marginal’ groups in recent years

Ontology, ethnography, archaeology: an afterword on the ontography of things

In commenting on the preceding articles of the Special Section, this afterword elaborates on the methodological and analytical implications for archaeology of the ontological alterity of animist phenomena. If such phenomena are challenging because they transgress the conceptual coordinates of archaeologists' habitual interpretive repertoires (mind vs matter, materiality vs culture, etc.), then what might archaeology's response to such challenges be, what might be distinctively archaeological about it, and how might it compare to related concerns among socio-cultural anthropologists and philosophers

Estmando a nessesidade: os oraculos de Ifa e a verdade em Havana

O objeto deste artigo é o conceito de verdade tal como se articula no oráculo de Ifá cubano; seu objetivo é ilustrar a fecundidade de um "método ontográfico" que procure mapear as premissas ontológicas do discurso nativo por meio da produção de conceitos que, não sendo os conceitos nativos eles mesmos, constituam equivalentes aproximados destes. Enfatizando a afirmação dos praticantes de que o Ifá é infalível, propõe-se que os vereditos divinatórios devem ser entendidos como verdades necessárias, isto é, como enunciados que não poderiam não ser verdadeiros. Em seguida, mostrando que, do ponto de vista das concepções comuns de verdade, a necessidade modal dos oráculos só pode parecer um absurdo dogmático, procura-se avançar uma conceitualização alternativa que concorde com as convicções dos informantes, examinando um complexo de conceitos e práticas associados ao oráculo a fim de avaliar as premissas que garantem a verdade e sua emergência na prática do Ifá. / This article analyzes the concept of truth as employed by Ifá oracles in Cuba; its aim is to illustrate the fertility of an 'ontographic method' dedicated to mapping the ontological premises of native discourse through the production of concepts which, while not the native concepts themselves, comprise close equivalents to them. Emphasizing practitioners claims that the Ifá is infallible, it is proposed that divinatory verdicts should be understood as necessary truths, that is, as statements which cannot not be true. Then, after showing that from the viewpoint of common place conceptions of truth, the modal necessity of oracles can only appear a dogmatic absurdity, I propose an alternative conceptualization which agrees with the convictions of informants. This involves examining a complex of concepts and practices linked to the oracle in order to evaluate the premises which ensure truth and its emergence in Ifá practice

The House of Spirits

With reference to one man’s remarkable struggle to rebuild his home in Havana following its partial collapse, this article contributes to the emerging anthropological literature on care by thematising the role of the state as carer-in-chief. Experiences such as that of Lázaro, the protagonist of the article, demonstrate the central paradox of care as a state project—one that receives its most extreme expression in the totalising project of revolutionary state socialism—namely, the contradiction between the particularistic, affective, and aesthetic character of care and the generalising and neutralising rational order of the state mechanisms charged with delivering it. Drawing on the ritual and cosmological template of Afro-Cuban espiritismo, Lázaro effectively solves this paradox by supplementing his relationship with state structures with an intricate, ever-evolving, and deeply personal relationship with spirits. The upshot is Lázaro’s remarkable sense of inner conviction in the efficacy of state bureaucracy, underpinned by the aesthetics of care that spiritsit practice provides

Revolutionary circles: A morphology of radical politics

Drawing on the contributions of this theme section, t his introduction stakes out an agenda for the anthropological study of revolutionary circles. Un-derstood as a powerful model of and for political action, the revolutionary circle renders the desire for radical political change as a function of the circular configu-ration of the group of people who pursue it. This correlation of political ends with social means puts questions of “political morphology”—actors’ concern with the shape of their relationships—at the center of revolutionary action. As the articles of the theme section illustrate, such a concern with social shapes plays itself out not only in questions of political organization, but also those of personal relationships and ethical comportment, practices of secrecy and dissemination, shared activities and values, and their different potentials for transformation over time

Revolución o muerte: Self-sacrifice and the Ontology of Cuban Revolution

With reference to the experience of the Cuban Revolution, this article addresses what may be called the 'late revolutionary paradox': How can so many people in countries such as Cuba continue to pledge visceral allegiance to their revolution while at the same time expressing deep disaffection with it? My main claim is that the paradox is a product of an undue analytical emphasis on the ideological content of revolutionary discourse, with its mantra-like evocations of 'process', 'change', 'emancipation' and other discursive projections into the future. Seen from the point of view of its form as a socio-political event, I argue, revolution turns on a deeper premise, namely the commitment to self-sacrifice, i.e. the assumption that revolutionary subjects are defined by their potential death in defence of the revolution. The premise of self-sacrifice, I argue, lends revolutionary politics a peculiar ontological foundation that makes it radically different to, broadly, 'liberal' understandings of politics. This difference, I show, dissolves the putative 'paradox' of later revolutionary societies such as Cuba, allowing revolutionary subjects to sustain a sense of revolutionary conviction in the face of the many historical contingencies that would seem otherwise to make such enduring convictions increasingly difficult to sustain. © 2013 Taylor & Francis