Dr. Knut Graw: Ritual Praxis Inside Out: Tracing Emic-etic continuities in Mandinka divination

Divinatory practices in Senegal and the Gambia are highly diverse and require diviners to manage different techniques and skills. Despite the diversity of practices, diviners apply technical notions that reflect both a common structure underlying these practices as well as an emic theory of divinatory praxis. This lecture focuses on several of these underlying notions and the question of how they can be translated into a theory of divination that bridges the seeming divide between emic and etic perspectives. By tracing emic-etic resonances in Mandinka divination, the lecture highlights the importance of paying particular attention to the often highly complex conceptual landscapes of esoteric ritual practices in Africa and beyond. In a second analytical move, the lecture interrogates the consequences of possible emic-etic resonances for the question of insider and outsider perspectives in the study of religious and ritual practices.