ABOUT THIS BOOK

In Spiritual Citizenship N. Fadeke Castor employs the titular concept to illuminate how Ifá/Orisha practices informed by Yoruba cosmology shape local, national, and transnational belonging in African diasporic communities in Trinidad and beyond. Drawing on almost two decades of fieldwork in Trinidad, Castor outlines how the political activism and social upheaval of the 1970s set the stage for African diasporic religions to enter mainstream Trinidadian society. She establishes how the postcolonial performance of Ifá/Orisha practices in Trinidad fosters a sense of belonging that invigorates its practitioners to work toward freedom, equality, and social justice. Demonstrating how spirituality is inextricable from the political project of black liberation, Castor illustrates the ways in which Ifá/Orisha beliefs and practices offer Trinidadians the means to strengthen belonging throughout the diaspora, access past generations, heal historical wounds, and envision a decolonial future.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

N. Fadeke Castor is Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Northeastern University.

REVIEWS

"The author deftly describes the ritual practices of African-based religions in the African diaspora and highlights the role of international conferences in the formation of religious identity. Additionally, she successfully relates the contemporary Orisa movement in Trinidad to the 1970s Trinidad black power movement. . . . Castor does an outstanding job of portraying the flow of ritual and ritual performance. Highly recommended."

-- S. D. Glazier Choice

"Spiritual Citizenship is an important text. . . . An essential teaching text on questions of multiculturalism, citizenship, race, and religion. Its engaging writing style on these timely issues and its focus on the under-studied (but fascinating) religious context of Trinidad make Spiritual Citizenship a must-read."

-- J. Brent Crosson Reading Religion

"Spiritual Citizenship is a groundbreaking ethnography. . . . With vivid, engaging and descriptive writing, Castor examines how Ifá/Orisha religious communities that were for decades persecuted and maligned have been re-evaluated in the context of the Black Power Movement in Trinidad—later defined as integral to the pluralistic and multicultural nation and simultaneously incorporated into transnational spiritual networks of priests and practitioners."

-- Yolanda D. Covington-Ward Transforming Anthropology

"Spiritual Citizenship makes an important ethnographic contribution to Caribbean anthropology and Afro-Atlantic history. . . . This study is notable for the unique and timely ethnographic contributions it makes."

-- Keith E. McNeal Journal of Anthropological Research

"What this book does best is to show how competing transnational and national dynamics offer multiple possibilities for religious authority and achievement, and how these possibilities generate friction. . . . Given how well Castor writes herself and her processes of learning and initiation into the ethnography, the book offers insights on transforming returns at multiple levels."

-- Paul Johnson Anthropos

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Note on Orthography ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction 1
Part I. Spiritual Engagements with Black Cultural Citizenship
1. The Spirit of Black Power: An Ancestral Calling 25
2. Multicultural Moments: From Margins to Mainstream 54
Part II. Emerging Spiritual Citizenship
3. Around the Bend: Festive Practices in a Yorùbá-Centric Shrine 71
4. Trini Travels: Spiritual Citizenship as Transnational 99
5. Ifá in Trinidad's Ground 128
Appendixes I-III 169
Notes 179
Glossary 191
References 197
Index 221

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