Joël Noret

La Place des Morts dans le Christianisme Céleste

The author challenges the classical approach of mourning in Sub-Saharan Africa which is too exclusively ethnic-oriented. It describes the position of the dead in the Celestial Church of Christ, an African prophetic church where he conducted fieldwork. Through the exploration of rituals for the deceased, the author analyses the interplay of Christian and “traditional” influences and the work of syncretization that shapes those original religious productions.

Grief as Social Fact: Notes from Southern Benin

This article explores the socialisation of the experience of grief in Southern Benin. Drawing on field research conducted in Southern Benin since the beginning of the 2000s and mobilising interviews and participant observations with bereaved people, I argue that grief is profoundly shaped by interiorised dispositions to think, act and feel, as well as social experiences (from family relationships to religious practices and economic conditions, among other things). The article mainly exemplifies this contention with two ethnographic vignettes, which respectively emphasise the significant place that funerals take locally in the grieving experience, and approach the issue of the socialisation of infant deaths.

Between Authenticity and Nostalgia : The Making of a Yoruba Tradition in Southern Benin

Joël Noret This paper discusses the changing status of a Yoruba ancestor cult in the region of Abomey (southern Benin), what the evolution of this cult says about relations with the past, and the entwinement of the construction of a feeling of “Yoruba authenticity” with nostalgia. Through this, I will show how social actors can relate to the past in non-monolithic ways, dividing it between parts of themselves.