The charm of things: ethnography and performance

• Grant number: 15/18329-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: January 20, 2016
• End date: July 19, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Theory of Anthropology
• Principal Investigator: Marta Denise da Rosa Jardim
• Grantee: Marta Denise da Rosa Jardim
• Host Investigator: Ramon Sarro
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Oxford, England

Abstract

This project, to be developed in Social Anthropology and Museum of Ethnography - SAME at Oxford University, is part of an ethnography studies the reproduction of the Hindu family in Mozambique. Ethnographic data, initiated in 2003, one year fieldwork in Mozambique were recently gathered in a database: BDEHPALA. The examination of some of these data raised a question that resulted from the latest research into the spirit of things Hindus in Mozambique. I considered that research that one can observe the action of things (Hindu sculptures) in the performance they enact with each other and their relationship with people. These scenes performatizam postulates inherited as Hindu heritage in Mozambique. In this project I intend, on one side, to continue the reflection on the part of research materials, inserted in BDEHPALA, with regard to Hindus things (sculptures of gods) and their relationships with things and with people. On the other hand, deepen dialogue with the researchers and the SAME research structure, from participation in seminars and other educational meetings, and research management, expography and anthropological literature on part of the Pitt Rivers Museum collection amulets and charms, ie the collection of the things that gives power. This question is at the same time, a strategy map for an initial search in Pitt Rivers Museum; and a literature review on issue that speaks to the analytical effort on the performance of things (between things and things, and between things and people) in BDEHPALA the material in focus in this project. (AU)