Vodún

A compelling ethnographic exposé, Timothy R. Landry’s Vodún: Secrecy and the Search for Divine Power examines how the deeply localized Vodún tradition of Benin has become a global urban religion in the twenty-first century. Today, Vodún appeals not simply to Beninese devotees of multiple ethnic backgrounds (e.g., Fon, Yorùbá [Nàgó], Ajă, and Gùn nations) but also to Western religious “pilgrims” and foreign spiritual tourists who seek spiritual power, religious secrets, and a connection to the divine, often in that order. Although a sizeable literature examines the globalization of certain African diasporic religions, Landry points out the lacuna in scholarship of non-Yorùbá-derived African religions’ expansion beyond the continent. Even less attention has been afforded to the initiations of foreigners from Europe and the Americas who journey to various corners of the Black Atlantic and avidly assume roles as White priests and priestesses of Africana traditions. Although not offering an ethnography of foreign initiates per se, the book investigates Vodún’s international initiation market, emphasizing Western religious tourism, transnationalism, and the “commodity” of religious secrecy. Landry asserts that Western involvement and shared secrecy have further increased Vodún’s spheres of influences both locally and globally speaking.

Ethnic group · Ethnography · Ethnology · Globalization · Political science · Power (physics) · Scholarship · Secrecy · Sociology · Anthropology · Chinese history and philosophy · Gender Studies · Law · Medieval Philosophy and Theology · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices