Archival irruptions : Constructing religion and criminalizing obeah in eighteenth-century jamaica. / Katharine Gerbner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gerbner, Katharine, 1983-

Contributor:

University of Minnesota.

Series:

Religious Cultures of African and African Diaspora People.

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

2025.

Durham Duke University Press, [2025]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In 1760, following the largest slave revolt in the eighteenth-century British Empire, the Afro-Caribbean word Obeah first appeared in British colonial law. In Archival Irruptions , Katharine Gerbner traces how British authorities in Jamaica came to criminalize Obeah, a practice that was variously seen as a healing method, an Africana religion, a science, and a form of witchcraft. Gerbner shows that in the years directly preceding its criminalization, for enslaved Africans and Maroons, Obeah was a prophetic practice tied to healing and death rites. Drawing on Moravian missionary archives, Gerbner theorizes these descriptions of African religious beliefs, rituals, and concepts as "irruptions": moments when Africana epistemologies break the narrative of a European-authored archival document. In these irruptions, we see European assertions of authority through the lens of Obeah. Moreover, we find that the modern category of religion is rooted in the histories of slavery, rebellion, and the criminalization of Black religious practices. Gerbner's search for archival irruptions not only creates an opportunity to write an alternative narration about Obeah; it provides a new methodology for all those conducting archival research.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Obeah

Part I. Introduction

1. Africana Irruptions: Baptism, Obeah, and Spaces of Correlation

2. Religio-Nations in the Archives: Re/Formations of Sacred Communities

3. Maroons, Blood Oaths, and Gendered Irruptions: Accompong and Margery

Part II: Heuchelei

Part II. Introduction

4. Archival Silence, Sexual Violence: Reading for Re/Membrance

5. Policing Bodies, Saving Souls: Dissimulation in the Archives

6. Constructing Religion, Defining Crime: Assembling, Congregating, Binding

Epilogue: Land And Archive: Identifying and Interpreting Irruptions

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-4780-9436-2

OCLC:

1497729984