Sónia Silva
What risks as well as promises reside in the relation between people and their material objects? How do reified concepts such as Witch, Refugee, Fetish, and Art mediate social and political relations? To answer these questions, I study basket divination, witchcraft, and mobility in the border region of Zambia and Angola; the history of the Western concept of the fetish; and the representation of Africa through its art in anthropology museums. I see my work as a contribution to the study of ritual and religion, violence, mobility, materiality, objectification, art, and museums.
I came from Portugal to the United States as a Fulbright fellow. In 1999, I received my doctoral degree in cultural anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington. An experiment in existential anthropology, my PhD dissertation led to the publication of two books dealing with the topics of basket divination and object animation in northwest Zambia: Vidas em Jogo (ICS 2004) and Along an African Border (Penn Press 2011). I am currently developing a new book project tentatively titled Art and Fetish in the Museum. Prior to joining academia, I worked as a postdoctoral fellow and museum curator at the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of African Art), in the United States, and Museu Nacional de Etnologia, in Portugal. Presently, I am an associate professor of anthropology at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.
Address: Skidmore College
815 N. Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
I came from Portugal to the United States as a Fulbright fellow. In 1999, I received my doctoral degree in cultural anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington. An experiment in existential anthropology, my PhD dissertation led to the publication of two books dealing with the topics of basket divination and object animation in northwest Zambia: Vidas em Jogo (ICS 2004) and Along an African Border (Penn Press 2011). I am currently developing a new book project tentatively titled Art and Fetish in the Museum. Prior to joining academia, I worked as a postdoctoral fellow and museum curator at the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of African Art), in the United States, and Museu Nacional de Etnologia, in Portugal. Presently, I am an associate professor of anthropology at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York.
Address: Skidmore College
815 N. Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
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Papers by Sónia Silva
flip side of pure, unimpeded mobility. In everyday existence, mobile individuals experience stillness, and physically immobilized individuals experience movement. As humans, we exist in a universe created by the possibilities of stasis and mobility, a universe that sets limits to our existence but also opens up new horizons. By adopting an existential stance we are more likely to avoid stereotyping and reification. We are also more likely to privilege the lifeworld over concepts such as migration and forced displacement, and more open to giving voice to new understandings of collective phenomena from the perspective of those individuals whose lives and movements generate them.
flip side of pure, unimpeded mobility. In everyday existence, mobile individuals experience stillness, and physically immobilized individuals experience movement. As humans, we exist in a universe created by the possibilities of stasis and mobility, a universe that sets limits to our existence but also opens up new horizons. By adopting an existential stance we are more likely to avoid stereotyping and reification. We are also more likely to privilege the lifeworld over concepts such as migration and forced displacement, and more open to giving voice to new understandings of collective phenomena from the perspective of those individuals whose lives and movements generate them.
"Silva's close study makes a valuable addition to the growing repertoire of ethnographic accounts of divination in Africa and the peoples who continue to invoke it as a pivotal cultural institution. . . . It is a tightly woven work that parallels the craftsmanship that Silva details in her study of divinatory baskets."—History of Religions
"With great originality, [Silva] accesses the life stories of these human subjects through the material objects with which they (inter-)relate. . . . Silva provides a stimulating model for any researcher hoping to partner with individuals in their efforts to confront the myriad ways they are objectified, whether by circumstances, by the state, or by scholarship."—Journal of Religion in Africa
"In addition to a useful debate between the economics and business awareness approach, or the personification of ritual, this book contains very useful and detailed descriptions of basket divination rituals and Angolan basket weaving techniques that will be useful to the general reader and students of African studies."—Journal of American Academy of Religion
"A thought-provoking study of the dynamics of divination in a refugee population seeking stability in a disrupted world through an ancient and effective 'way of knowing.' Using the frame of a divination basket's life history from birth to adulthood, Silva provides a rich contextual study of the various paths to understanding presented by the core cultural institution of divination: material culture and art, economic theory, gender relations, the nature of knowledge, ethnography, jurisprudence, and personhood."—Philip M. Peek, Drew University
Este livro pois trata-se de uma obra que ultrapassa os limites informativos e discursivos habituais dos catálogos expositivos assume-se como um percurso de reconhecimento da vida social dos objectos, retratando a sua biografia em relatos vividos. Elementos profundamente imbuídos da história social de Angola, pela visão de Sónia Silva os cestos falam-nos diferentemente de três épocas da história de Angola: até 1975 (período colonial a que corresponde o primeiro acervo), entre 1975 e 2002 (guerra civil, aqui evocada através de fotografias da comunicação social que documentam a contínua utilização de objectos de cestaria durante esse período) e 2002, data da última recolha, realizada já pela autora." (excerpto da recensao redigica por Clara Carvalho para a revista Etnograpfica)