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Interview with an ancestor

2009; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 10; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/1466138109339044

1741-2714

Nils Bubandt,

Anthropological Studies and Insights

A B S T R A C T ■ This article explores the relationship between spirit possession, politics and subjectivity. Based on an account of two possession ceremonies on the island of Ternate in eastern Indonesia, I show that as spirits are being conjured up for political reasons, they partake in a spiritual politics in which they are both instruments and actors. Methodologically, I use these accounts to suggest the need to treat spirits as informants. From this I develop a critique of the continuing link between the anthropological concept of the informant and conventional ideas about bounded subjectivity, a link that remains unquestioned despite much contemporary anthropological research into the complexity of lived subjectivity. Analytically, I argue that treating spirits as informants reveals how possession rituals construct and make intelligible a particular relationship between politics, experience and emerging democracy in Indonesia. Treating spirits as ‘methodologically real’ therefore has important analytical consequences for how we understand their political efficacy.