Contradiction and Forgetting in Yewéssey Culture
Abstract
Anthropologists are now inescapably aware of conflict, contradiction, and negotiation
in even the most seemingly "traditional" socio-cultural orders. The literature on
"memory" is particularly rich in illustrations of how contradictory evocations of
the past undergird conflicting performances and assertions of interest in the present.
This study of the traditionally nomadic Yewéssey people documents a genre of performance
seldom discussed in the anthropological literature—the ritual performance of forgetting
as a means of resolving intractable conflicts and cultural contradictions. This essay
is written with an undergraduate or lay audience in mind and is intended to introduce
anthropological comparative method, and some of its most important vocabulary, in
accessible language. Questions for classroom discussion are provided at the end.
Type
Journal articlePermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6502Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1525/tran.2001.10.2.2Publication Info
Matory, J Lorand (2001). Contradiction and Forgetting in Yewéssey Culture. Transforming Anthropology, 10(2). pp. 2-12. 10.1525/tran.2001.10.2.2. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6502.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
J. Lorand Matory
Lawrence Richardson Distinguished Professor of Cultural Anthropology
Specialties
Anthropology & History, Africa, African Diaspora, Transnationalism, Social Theory
Research Summary
Anthropology of religion, of ethnicity, of education and of social theory; history
and theory of anthropology; African and African-inspired religions around the Atlantic
perimeter; ethnic diversity in the African-descended population of the US; tertiary
education as a culture; gender, religion and politics; transnationalis

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