Transforming Cattle into Blessings
The Moral Economy of Mbororo Pilgrimage
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3933385 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Tea Virtanen (0000-0002-0908-4904, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Department of Social ResearchUnioninkatu 38 D, 00014 University of HelsinkiFinland, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 92-126 |
| Publication date | 2014-02-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Religion in Africa (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-4200 • E-ISSN: 1570-0666 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15700666-12341277 |
| OpenAlex | W2047448951 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 31 |
In this essay I explore the meaning of cattle for the Mbororo pastoralists of the Adamaoua Region, Cameroon, in realising and conceptualising the pilgrimage to Mecca. As an analytic frame I employ the concept of moral economy and the related discussion of cycles of exchange by Jonathan Parry and Maurice Bloch (1989), which, I argue, open up new ways of understanding and theorising the pilgrimage process. For the Mbororo cattle form the material base for the pilgrimage, as it is only through cattle sales that they are able to carry out the journey. Furthermore, the possibility of going on a public pilgrimage through selling cattle has significance for local intraethnic relations because it has blurred the traditional power hierarchy by providing the relatively marginalised Mbororo a more visible Muslim status in the region. The cattle also shape the way in which the Mbororo conceptualise the pilgrimage experience by forming an elemental part of a set of symbolic transformations through which the blessing (barka) of Mecca reaches the Mbororo camps of Adamaoua, and the pilgrimage is absorbed into the sociocosmic order of the pastoral community. Finally, in the Mbororo moral discourse these 'pastoral' transformations, guided by sociospiritual reasons, are contrasted with other Adamaouan pilgrims' purely economically motivated transactions during the journey
Aesthetics · Ancient history · Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Geography · Hierarchy · Livestock · Meaning (existential) · Moral economy · Order (exchange) · Pastoralism · Pilgrimage · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion, Society, and Development · Religious Tourism and Spaces
The Rational Peasant
Making of the English Working Class
Contesting the sacred
Modernity and its malcontents
Pastoralism in Tropical Africa
Introduction
What ‘Alhaji Airplane’ saw in Mecca, and what happened when he came home
Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance
Les fresques d'époque bovidienne du Tassili N'Ajjer et les traditions des Peul
Contribution à l'étude du comportement religieux des Woɗaaɓe Dageeja du Nord-Cameroun
Muslim Travellers
The Politics of Cultural Difference in Northern Cameroon
Fissabilillah ! Islam au Sénégal et initiatives féminines
Pilgrimage, Power, and Identity
Pastoralists of the West African Savanna
Aristocrats Facing Change
Pilgrimage, Power, and Identity
On the Idea of the Moral Economy
The Rational Peasant. The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam
The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth Century
Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors
Communitas Reconsidered
The Hajj
The Moral Economy of the Peasant
Estranged belongings
Do you believe in pilgrimage
Factors Associated with the Mecca Pilgrimage among the Bokkos Fulani
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,09 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2015 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |