Purchase this article
USD $22.00
“SpiritS Follow the words”
Stories as Spirit Traces among the Khmu of Northern Laos
in Social Analysis
Author:
Rosalie Stolz
Rosalie Stolz
University of Cologne rstolz0@uni-koeln.de
Search for other papers by Rosalie Stolz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Search for other papers by Rosalie Stolz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
USD $0.01
All currencies in US Dollar
Abstract
A general conundrum for the Khmu of northern Laos is the persistent unknowability of spirits. The locals gauge the potency of spirits by keeping track of spirit stories. Spirit narratives can be conceived of as transient traces of intangible spirit phenomena, as will be exemplified by the story of a young man’s spirit affliction. Sharing and silencing spirit stories are a means of determining the strength of spirits, as well as an efficacious way to evoke them. Using works that embark from the fragmentary and experiential character of animist cosmologies, it will be shown that approaching spirit stories as traces of spirits will be a suitable way to address the perspectives of those who navigate a world that is not inhabited by humans alone.
Contributor Notes
Rosalie Stolz, M.A., teaches in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. In December 2017, she defended her dissertation titled “Fear the Spirits, Love Each Other: Kinship and Sociality among the Khmu Yuan of Northern Laos,” which is based on 14 months of fieldwork in northwestern Laos in 2013–2015. Her research focuses on kinship, work, exchange, sociality, cosmologies, socio-economic change, and rural transformations in upland northern Laos. E-mail: rstolz0@uni-koeln.de