Other Worlds, Other Bodies: Embodied Epistemologies and Ethnographies of Healing

When approaching the multiplicity of the spiritual experiences of healing, ethnographers are often presented with ideas of the existence of “other” worlds that may intersect with the so-called “material” or “physical” worlds. This book addresses the density of ethnographic experience that can potentially decondition personal ontologies and epistemologies, unfolding a process of transformation, analogous to healing. Epistemological embodiment signals that personal scholarly experience of the “unknown”—be it in the form of trance, or as the embodiment of an “other”—shapes the concepts of healing, body, trance, self, and matter by which ethnographers craft out analysis.