1st Edition

Living in a Landscape of Scarcity Materiality and Cosmology in West Africa

By Laurence Douny Copyright 2014
    257 Pages
    by Routledge

    257 Pages
    by Routledge

    In her close ethnography of a Dogon village of Mali, Laurence Douny shows how a microcosmology develops from people's embodied daily and ritual practice in a landscape of scarcity. Viewed through the lens of containment practice, she describes how they cope with the shortage of material items central to their lives—water, earth, and millet. Douny’s study is an important addition to ecological anthropology, to the study of West African cultures, to the understanding of material culture, and to anthropological theory.

    Living in a Landscape of Scarcity

    Biography

    Laurence Douny