Overview

The collapse of socialism at the end of the twentieth century brought devastating changes to Mongolia. Economic shock therapy—an immediate liberalization of trade and privatization of publicly owned assets—quickly led to impoverishment, especially in rural parts of the country, where Tragic Spirits takes place. Following the travels of the nomadic Buryats, Manduhai Buyandelger tells a story not only of economic devastation but also a remarkable Buryat response to it—the revival of shamanic practices after decades of socialist suppression. Attributing their current misfortunes to returning ancestral spirits who are vengeful over being abandoned under socialism, the Buryats are now at once trying to appease their ancestors and recover the history of their people through shamanic practice. Thoroughly documenting this process, Buyandelger situates it as part of a global phenomenon, comparing the rise of shamanism in liberalized Mongolia to its similar rise in Africa and Indonesia. In doing so, she offers a sophisticated analysis of the way economics, politics, gender, and other factors influence the spirit world and the crucial workings of cultural memory.

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9780226086569

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Reviews

Packed with interwoven personal narratives which the author ties together to show the fragility and molding of Buryat memory and Buryat shamanism's purpose during the transition from state socialism to neoliberal capitalism in Mongolia. . . . Buyandelger has created an emotive, accessible, and well-researched ethnography sure to arouse sympathy and interest in readers. --Michael Warren LSE Review of Books

Manduhai Buyandelger's accounts of Mongolians' anxious attempts to enlist the help of new shamans to find their lost dead, against a background of deep disruption by socialist terror followed by a failed neoliberal 'shock therapy, ' are deeply moving. They also raise challenging questions of a more general purport: the 'reality' of spirits that seem to be out of contact, the expertise of specialists who have to start from lost knowledge, and the tricks memory can play offering relief nonetheless. A powerful analysis of common sense, the supernatural, and innovative creativity. --Peter Geschiere, author of Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust

Author Information

Manduhai Buyandelger is assistant professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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