Law in Light: Priestesses, Priests, and the Revitalization of Akan Spirituality in the United States and Ghana - Paperback

by Lauren Coyle Rosen (Author)

Law in Light is a groundbreaking book on the resurgence and transformation of Akan path spiritual communities in the United States and Ghana. Drawing on extensive collaborative ethnographic research, the book offers powerful portraits of priestesses, priests, and others on their spiritual journeys, in their ancestral reconnections, and in their everyday lives. The book spotlights a queen mother, shrine elders, priests, and priestesses of a prominent shrine house in Maryland, as well as leaders at a legendary Asuo Gyebi source shrine in Ghana. In exploring worlds of healing, empowerment, and justice, Lauren Coyle Rosen argues for the importance of two novel theoretical concepts, which she calls copresent jurisdictions and constellations of subjectivity. The book urges a broader retheorization of alternative spiritual orders within contemporary theopolitical, cosmopolitical, and postjuristocratic debates.

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Brilliantly exploring spiritual terrains and orders, Lauren Coyle Rosen, in conjunction with Akan keepers of sacred knowledge, soul-crafts constellations for acting within and beyond legally coded worlds. Showing how West African practices of spiritual liberation address decolonial exigencies, the book actualizes new methods for grappling with conventionally incompatible domains.--AbdouMaliq Simone, author of The Surrounds: Urban Life within and beyond Capture

"Erudite and world changing--a must-read! Coyle Rosen's analysis sheds light on the multifaceted interactions between spiritual belief systems and modern legal frameworks, providing a nuanced perspective on Akan spirituality, its contemporary relevance to political and legal practice, and discourses on justice."--Kamari Maxine Clarke, author of Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback

"In this remarkable book, Coyle Rosen explores the art of healing scars that still linger in slavery's long shadow and the suffering that unfolds daily under the banalities of postcolonial African nationhood."--Claudio Lomnitz, Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University

"A beautiful exploration of Akan spirituality. Coyle Rosen brings us into the philosophies, practices, and everyday lives of Akan priestesses and priests in both Ghana and the United States, revealing both their spiritual relationships and their theopolitical engagements. This is a tremendously powerful and deeply moving work."--Michael Puett, Walter C. Klein Professor of Chinese History and Anthropology, Harvard University

"An outstanding blend of ethnographic sensitivity, theoretical acuity, and writerly poise. By documenting the spiritual trajectories of African American priests and priestesses involved in the revitalization of Akan sacred culture, Coyle Rosen provides a unique window into the principled and pragmatic ways that an African religion lays a path toward a more equitable future. A brilliant example of an anthropology of 'sovereignty from below.'"--Adeline Masquelier, author of Prayer Has Spoiled Everything: Possession, Power, and Identity in an Islamic Town of Niger

"Coyle Rosen's beautifully rendered study of Akan spirituality and justice seeking confronts the reader with both the immediacy of radical emancipatory alterity and the limits of finding resolution within the boundaries of racialized state, legal, and political institutions. The Akan priests and priestesses whose voices, experiences, and philosophies are at the heart of Law in Light teach us to look for the spark of illumination in the deeper constellations that constitute identity, community, and meaning."--Mark Goodale, author of Reinventing Human Rights

"Law in Light is a captivating study of the interconnected worlds of Akan spiritualists and spirits in Ghana and the United States. It's an impressive example of decolonial ethnography that introduces readers to the priests, priestesses, spirits, spiritual warriors, and ancestors who, alongside the author, dream, converse, write, and theorize about the Akan sacred art of healing from historical trauma and state violence."--Annalisa Butticci, author of the book African Pentecostals in Catholic Europe: The Politics of Presence in the Twenty-First Century

"Coyle Rosen skillfully portrays how Akan practitioners collaborate with African spirits and ancestors to create new forms of politics, justice, and subjectivity that challenge understandings of what these things are and what they might become. Her compelling prose transports us directly into the concepts, arguments, and life histories of her deeply thoughtful and critical interlocutors."--James H. Smith, author of The Eyes of the World: Mining the Digital Age in the Eastern DR Congo

"Law in Light offers a faithful and evocative picture of a circum-Atlantic religion. This vital conversation among Caribbean American, African American, and Akan practitioners will have world-changing consequences."--J. Brent Crosson, author of Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad

"A genuinely collaborative project, Law in Light offers both a collective self-portrait of African and African American Akan spiritualists and a searching exploration of alternative forms of identification, sovereignty, and cosmopolitics beyond the terms of the secular liberal settlement."--Stephan Palmi?, author ofThe Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion

"This ethnography of Akan priests and priestesses in the United States and Ghana explores both realms of justice constituted across the Black Atlantic and divides between the human and the divine. Its exploration of these spiritualists' coming into the light of justice and the mysteries that unfold along the way challenges the limits of law as a site of emancipation and charts new avenues for reparation beyond those limits."--Carlota McAllister, Associate Professor of Anthropology, York University

"Through its deeply collaborative portrayals of Akan spiritualists practicing in Ghana and the United States, Law in Light offers an engaging and nuanced analysis of the revitalization of Akan spirituality and illuminates new pathways toward justice and flourishing."--China Scherz, Professor of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame

Author Biography

Lauren Coyle Rosen is the author of Fires of Gold, Hannibal Lokumbe (with Hannibal Lokumbe), and The Spirit of Ani (with Ani DiFranco), as well as six volumes of poetry.