The Poetics of "Madness": Shifting Codes and Styles in the Linguistic Construction of Identity in Matlab, Bangladesh

Female saints and the practice of Islam in Sylhet, Bangladesh

“…This rule is partly predicated on the associations Shuli makes between men and impurity. Whereas men are admonished not to allow droplets of urine to contaminate their clothing lest they undo ozu (Wilce 2000:11), women are more profoundly associated with impurity in Bangladeshi ideology. Second, Shuli's insistence on seeing male clients only if they are accompanied by a female relative is a reversal of the common (rural) practice of male healers expecting to see female patients accompanied by their male guardians 46 .…”

“…Whereas being taken over by the spirit involves a displacement of the host's consciousness, the spirit may expand the host's personal agency by legitimating the host's voice (Lambek 1993, 2000). James Wilce's (1998, 2000) spirit medium, Shefali, is a case in point. Shefali has a reputation among local villagers for offering curative advice on Thursday nights when she enters into a trance state.…”

“…The spirit enables Shefali to behave and speak in ways that normally she could not. Once when she was in a trance, the spirit–Shefali gleefully described how she—the spirit or Shefali—pushed Shefali's husband over in the rice fields because he forgot to perform one of the obligatory five daily prayers (Wilce 2000:19). In the sense that her newly found assertiveness can be regarded as a sign of health, Wilce (1998:56) notes the blurring of the line between illness and health.…”

‘Islamic fatalism’: life and suffering among Bangladeshi psychiatric patients and their families in London – an interview study 2

“…Along a spectrum between purist ('Saudi') Islam and the more ecstatic and thaumaturgical, and sometimes seen locally as ‘mad’ (Wilce 2000). …”

Paradox, Ambiguity, and the Re‐Creation of Self: Reflections on a Narrative from Nepal

“…Although this topic has not received as much attention as that of ritual and performance, it certainly has not been entirely neglected. For recent work on narrative, paradox, and the construction of self in South Asia, see, especially, Desjarlais 2000, Lamb 2000, Wilce 2000. The use of narratives (songs, laments, stories) to communicate the paradoxes or ambiguities of feeling or position has been more widely discussed.…”