Nation Dance
Religion, Identity, and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean

Edited by Patrick Taylor

Addresses the interplay of diverse spiritual, religious, and cultural traditions across the Caribbean.

Dealing with the ongoing interaction of rich and diverse cultural traditions from Cuba and Jamaica to Guyana and Surinam, Nation Dance addresses some of the major contemporary issues in the study of Caribbean religion and identity. The book's three sections move from a focus on spirituality and healing, to theology in social and political context, and on to questions of identity and diaspora.

The book begins with the voices of female practitioners and then offers a broad, interdisciplinary examination of Caribbean religion and culture. Afro-Caribbean religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all addressed, with specific reflections on Santería, Palo Monte, Vodou, Winti, Obeah, Kali Mai, Orisha work, Spiritual Baptist faith, Spiritualism, Rastafari, Confucianism, Congregationalism, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and liberation theology. Some essays are based on fieldwork, archival research, and textual or linguistic analysis, while others are concerned with methodological or theoretical issues. Contributors include practitioners and scholars, some very established in the field, others with fresh, new approaches; all of them come from the region or have done extensive fieldwork or research there. In these essays the poetic vitality of the practitioner's voice meets the attentive commitment of the postcolonial scholar in a dance of "nations" across the waters.

Patrick Taylor, Associate Professor in the Division of Humanities and in the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought at York University, Toronto, is past Deputy Director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean and Editor-in-Chief of the Caribbean Religions Project. He is author of The Narrative of Liberation: Perspectives on Afro-Caribbean Literature, Popular Culture and Politics and co-editor of Forging Identities and Patterns of Development in Latin America and the Caribbean. His articles have appeared in Callaloo, Studies in Religion, and other scholarly journals and books.

May 2001
224 pages, 1 b&w photo, 1 map, 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, bibl., index
cloth 0-253-33835-2 $39.95 L / £30.50
paper 0-253-21431-9 $18.95 s / £14.50 books.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Dancing the Nation: An Introduction,Patrick Taylor
I. Spirituality, Healing and the Divine
Across the Waters: Practitioners Speak, Eva Fernandez, Yvonne B. Drakes, and Deloris Seiveright
How Shall We Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land? Constructing the Divine in
Caribbean Contexts, Althea Prince
Communicating with our Gods: The Language of Winti, Petronella Breinburg
The Intersemiotics of Obeah and Kali Mai in Guyana, Frederick Ivor Case
Religions of African Origin in Cuba: A Gender Perspective, María Margarita Castro Flores
II. Theology, Society and Politics
Sheba's Song: The Bible, the Kebra Nagast and the Rastafari, Patrick Taylor
Themes from West Indian Church History in Colonial and Post-Colonial Times, Arthur C. Dayfoot
Congregationalism and Afro-Guyanese Autonomy, Juanita de Barros
Eden after Eve: Christian Fundamentalism and Women in Barbados, Judith Soares
Current Evolution of Relations between Religion and Politics in Haiti, Laënnec Hurbon
III. Religion, Identity, and Diaspora
Jamaican Diasporic Identity: The Metaphor of Yaad, Barry Chevannes
Identity, Personhood and Religion in Caribbean Context, Abrahim H. Khan
Sanfancón: Orientalism, Self-Orientalization, and "Chinese Religion" in Cuba, Frank F. Scherer
The Diasporic Mo(ve)ment: Indentureship and Indo-Caribbean Identity, Sean Lokaisingh-Meighoo
Caribbean Religions: A Selected Bibliography