Amina: portrait of a woman inhabited by ancestral spirits (Senegal)

Abstract

The article presents the results of an enethnographic research conducted in Senegal originated by the life of Amina, an ethnic Lebu woman possessed by the spirits of her lineage. Amina's story shows the lacerations of the protagonist, who simultaneously inhabits two worlds: traditional Lebu culture and Western culture. When the spirits manifest in her life, Amina is forced to choose between two different interpretations of her suffering: the traditional persecutory one and the Western psychopathological one. She chooses to stick to the traditional interpretation, but to reject the healers her family imposes on her and to turn to a priest of her choice, who has been sensitive to her needs when individuating the cure. Amina strategically manipulates the plasticity of the traditional belief system without abandoning it but bending it to her tenacious subjectivity as a liminal person who inhabits and redraws the boundary between two worlds.