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The Devil's Book of Culture: History, Mushrooms, and Caves in Southern Mexico
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The Devil's Book of Culture: History, Mushrooms, and Caves in Southern Mexico
Current price: $28.95
Barnes and Noble
The Devil's Book of Culture: History, Mushrooms, and Caves in Southern Mexico
Current price: $28.95
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In this highly original ethnography, Benjamin Feinberg investigates how different understandings of Mazatec identity and culture emerge through talk that circulates within and among various groups, including Mazatec-speaking businessmen, curers, peasants, intellectuals, anthropologists, bureaucrats, cavers, and mushroom-seeking tourists. Specifically, he traces how these groups express their sense of culture and identity through narratives about three nearby yet strange discursive "worlds"the "magic world" of psychedelic mushrooms and shamanic practices, the underground world of caves and its associated folklore of supernatural beings and magical wealth, and the world of the past or the past/present relationship. Feinberg's research refutes the notion of a static Mazatec identity now changed by contact with the outside world, showing instead that identity forms at the intersection of multiple transnational discourses.