Mama Lola

• An ethnographic spiritual biography.

• A spiritual biography = focuses on the life and religious practices of Mama Lola, a vodou priestess living in Brooklyn, NY.

• An ethnography = provides a full picture of the cultural context of Mama Lola’s life, both in the US, and in Haiti.

The Sprits

• Speak eloquently through the priestess’s body.

• Address the problems and suffering of ordinary human beings.

Oral History

• Stories told about Mama Lola’s spiritual ancestors = one of the most important sources of Brown’s anthropological insights.

Anthropological interpretation seeks to make meaning out of the meaning-making of others.

“Who gets to speak and from what perspective?” = Answered

• Hearing and giving room (in the ethnography) to the different voices present in fieldwork context.

• Style of writing = central in new forms of anthropological representation.

• New forms address issues of authorship + responsibility toward research participants, readers, and the profession.

• Turn to the person sitting next to you and talk about = authorship in writing and in storytelling.

• Express your thoughts on Brown’s solution to the dilemma: whose authorship is being represented in the book?

Mama Lola’s oral performances of family history

• Not only entertainment.

• An evocation aimed at a particular existential knot in family life.

• Illustrate emotions, feelings, advice and tales of caution about what is important in life.

Brown undertook initiation in Haitian vudou practices:

• Twofold shift:

• Change in the status of her relationship with Alourdes = friendship developed.

• Change in her role as a scholar = Brown questioned her role as a detached observer whose goal was to describe reality scientifically.

Gains and risks involved in this shift:

• Gains = depth of understanding.

• Risks = losing distinction between the meaning of vodou for Haitian practitioners and for the ethnographer.

• Academy has overemphasized those things that separate individuals and cultures from one another.

Alourdes makes connections all the time

• As a form of cultural and social survival in Brooklyn.

• As a way of enacting a Haitian ethos that works on the assumption of connection.

• Alourdes is not afraid of incorporating elements from other cultures into her own worldview.

• Haitian tradition emphasizes the importance of extended family relations.

Routine Culture Mixing

Interpretive Anthropology

• Study how people themselves create meaning and interpret objects and events in their lives.

Mama Lola

• This ethnographic study in particular is an interpretation within one cultural tradition (North America), of the interpretations of Haitians, who follow a very different cultural aesthetic.

Vodou Religion

• People in Haiti don’t live out their religion in an unreflective, formulaic way.

• They struggle with it.

• Religion is deeply embedded in peoples’ everyday lives.

• Please turn to your neighbour and discuss the meaning of food in the context of Vodou.