Lidia Guzy - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Lidia Guzy

This work presents the summarised results of an anthropological and ethno-musicological documenta... more This work presents the summarised results of an anthropological and ethno-musicological documentation of hitherto unknown traditions of sacred music performed by marginalised musicians and priest-musicians of the Adivasi (indigenous) Bora Sambar region of western Orissa/Odisha, India. The work is based on more than 30 months of ethnographic research in rural regions of western Orissa/Odisha.

Paragrana

Der Beitrag diskutiert die vielfältigen Askese-Traditionen und Vorstellungen einer neuen religiös... more Der Beitrag diskutiert die vielfältigen Askese-Traditionen und Vorstellungen einer neuen religiösen Gruppe im Osten Indiens, deren Zentren in asketischen Orden und der Laienbevölkerung in Stammesgebieten Odishas liegen.

Performing Identities, 2017

1 | 2 | 2021 Humanities, Ecocriticism and Multispecies Relations. Proceedings (part I), 2021

This article deals with indigenous shamanic worldviews and indigenous knowledge as dialogical eco... more This article deals with indigenous shamanic worldviews and indigenous knowledge as dialogical eco-cosmology. It shows the relevance of eco-cosmology as local indigenous ecological and spiritual knowledge in the context of global biodiversity and sustainability discourses.

When we talk about contemporary indigeneity and religion in India, we are talking of around 100,0... more When we talk about contemporary indigeneity and religion in India, we are talking of around 100,000,000 people. This number is still a modest estimate for the more than 600 distinct groups in India, each with its own traditions, history, circumstances, and in some cases languages, that are encompassed by the word "indigenous". As a small sample, we present local studies of groups of people stretching from Gujarat in the west (see Alles in this volume) through Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha in central-eastern India (see the contributions of Beggiora, Guzy, Nadal and Skoda) to Arunachal Pradesh (see Scheid and Barkataki-Ruscheweyh) and Meghalaya (see Lyngdoh) in the northeast. They are the result of a collaboration between the editors that began in 2011 at the conference of the South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Religion and Culture in Thimphu, Bhutan and continues through the Adivasi Religion and Society Network (www.arsnetwork.org).

Dealing with Disasters, 2020

This chapter analyzes local patterns of Mahima Dharma, a new ascetic religion in Odisha, which re... more This chapter analyzes local patterns of Mahima Dharma, a new ascetic religion in Odisha, which recently proselytized in the Koraput region of Eastern India. The chapter describes and discusses the cultural resilience of an eco-cosmological worldview in the context of conversion. As eco-cosmologies the article defines worldviews and life-worlds relating intrinsically the human with the non-human, the cosmos and the other-than-human sphere such as trees, animals, rivers, mountains. Among the Mahima Dharma followers in Koraput, this relatedness between the human and non-human sphere is mainly mediated by a ritual ecstatic specialist, a shaman, connecting through visions and dreams the living world with an animated ecological landscape.

SOCIOLÓGIA A SPOLOČNOSŤ / SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIETY, 2021

Metaphor, Sustainability, Transformation, 2021

Trance Mediums and New Media

Voices from the Periphery, 2020

The contemporary era, both in the “East” and in the “West”, seems to have – in a certain sense – ... more The contemporary era, both in the “East” and in the “West”, seems to have – in a certain sense – legitimised the theme of fear, the figure of the monster and the fright that it instils. Multiple and polychrome representations through fashionable narrative cycles – such as television and film series, comics and novels, videogames and whatever else distinguishes the mass production of the postmodern period – have now accustomed contemporary society to a certain familiarity with the theme (Levina / Bui 2013, Asma 2009). However, in these contemporary forms of representation of what we conceive of as unknown, unknowable and consequently scary, even potentially monstrous – but also prodigious and admirable – there is a certain widespread awareness of the survival of the original root of an ancient tradition. A certainly pre-modern, pre-urban cultural element that boasts a similar imagery in social and ideological complexes that are also very distant in space and time. It is important to ...

Journal of Social Sciences, 2004

Research on Orissa has been extensive and diverse and has produced many novel findings throughout... more Research on Orissa has been extensive and diverse and has produced many novel findings throughout history from earliest times until today.1 At the 17th annual European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, which took place in Heidelberg, Germany, in 2002, a panel was devoted to regional studies of Orissa. The participants shared their academic perspectives and presented richly nuanced case studies of their socio-cultural research on Orissa. Topics discussed included language, religion, subaltern thought, gender, social change and art. This Special Issue of the Journal of Social Sciences, which contains revised versions of some of the papers presented at the conference, provides a glimpse of the broad spectrum of modern research on Orissa. Elinor Gadon’s article “Annapurna Ma, Priestess and Healer: Women’s Agency in Folk Culture of Rural Orissa” deals with the fascinating life of a self-initiated female priest. Gadon discusses the role of healing and ascetic practices in popular ...

Are museums symbols of cultural dominance or spaces of social participation and integration? For ... more Are museums symbols of cultural dominance or spaces of social participation and integration? For a long time museum studies have dealt with the functions of museums in different, but mostly western, societies (Bennett 1995; Dodd / Sandell 2001). Comparative investigations on non-western museums have been lacking. The museum research project "From Imperial museum to the communication centre? On the new role of museums as an interface between science and non-western societies”, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, tries to close this research gap (Guzy/Hatoum/Kamel 2006). The authors of this article share a scientific affiliation with the „New Museology“, a theoretical framework which was formulated in the beginning of the 1980s within the circles of the International Council of Museum (Ganslmayr in 1989: 79-84). Inspired by museum professionals from the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (Wessler 2007:17), the New Museology initiated a critical debate on the necessity of new...

This article deals with Mahima Dharma a contemporary vernacular ascetic religion of Odisha/Easter... more This article deals with Mahima Dharma a contemporary vernacular ascetic religion of Odisha/Eastern India displaying a rich diversity in its regional configurations. In this paper the author proposes to look at the main protagonists of the religion, the ascetics (babas), as non-Brahmin priests, who have incorporated shakti, the power of local goddesses into their disciplined bodies and in doing so have transformed the feminine element of the Hindu belief into the belief of the indescribable and abstract god Alekha. Mahima Dharma is seen in this contribution as a sort of micro structure on the one hand of popular asceticism in rural India and on the other hand as a recent religious reform movement integrating local non-Brahmin priesthood and the local belief in goddesses into the mainstream of the male Hindu pantheon. This article draws on the author’s PhD fieldwork research (1999-2002), published in 2002 as a monograph (Guzy 2002)1.

Introduction 1. Nisad of the Ganga: Playing with the notions of margin and centre Djallal Heuze 2... more Introduction 1. Nisad of the Ganga: Playing with the notions of margin and centre Djallal Heuze 2. From History to Heritage: Adivasi Identity and Hul Sengel Dan Rycroft 3. On entering the remote area: Recent German anthropological research in western Orissa Georg Pfeffer 4. The history of the royal family of Bonai: Texts, centres and authorities Uwe Skoda 5. Village festival and kingdom frame: Centre and periphery from a Poraja village point of view, southern Orissa Raphael Rousseleau 6. The poly-culture of Mahima Dharma: On ascetics and Shamans in a new religious movement of Orissa Lidia Guzy 7. Gonasika, a tribal sacred place and a Hindu centre of pilgrimage Cecile Guillaume 8. The Billavas of Karnataka and the Santals of Orissa: Two peripheries asserting their position towards the center Marine Carrin 9. Towards a comparison of traditional centre-periphery relations in two regions on the west coast of India: Saurashtra and south Kanara Harald Tambs-Lyche 10. Brahmans of the Pariy...