{"title":"IN THE SHADE OF HAILSTONES: Life-Forming Realities among the Luo of Kano, Kenya","authors":"KENNEDY OPANDE, WASHINGTON ONYANGO-OUMA","doi":"10.14506/ca39.3.01","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the area of Kano in western Kenya, Luo rice farmers perform a ritual of “digging” indigenous medicine (<i>chwoyo yath</i>) in the rice fields to “arrest” hailstones. The practice is not only rationalized in the image of regulating the spate of climate–accelerated hailstones but also of forming life, expressed through the state of how that life is secured and propagated. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with rice farmers and an expert on hailstones, as well as on participant observation, this article explores the exegetical agency of rice medicines, which is reflected in the affective act of arresting hailstones. This is conceptualized through a cosmo–juridical agency of life-forming by creating an interconnection between human life and a natural phenomenon. The article underscores the varied domains of natural phenomena (weather conditions, calamities), rice crop, and humans as agencies that co-negotiate toward life-forming through their forces that transform states of life processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":51423,"journal":{"name":"Cultural Anthropology","volume":"39 3","pages":"323-347"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.14506/ca39.3.01","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Cultural Anthropology","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.14506/ca39.3.01","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
In the area of Kano in western Kenya, Luo rice farmers perform a ritual of “digging” indigenous medicine (chwoyo yath) in the rice fields to “arrest” hailstones. The practice is not only rationalized in the image of regulating the spate of climate–accelerated hailstones but also of forming life, expressed through the state of how that life is secured and propagated. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with rice farmers and an expert on hailstones, as well as on participant observation, this article explores the exegetical agency of rice medicines, which is reflected in the affective act of arresting hailstones. This is conceptualized through a cosmo–juridical agency of life-forming by creating an interconnection between human life and a natural phenomenon. The article underscores the varied domains of natural phenomena (weather conditions, calamities), rice crop, and humans as agencies that co-negotiate toward life-forming through their forces that transform states of life processes.
期刊介绍：
Cultural Anthropology publishes ethnographic writing informed by a wide array of theoretical perspectives, innovative in form and content, and focused on both traditional and emerging topics. It also welcomes essays concerned with ethnographic methods and research design in historical perspective, and with ways cultural analysis can address broader public audiences and interests.
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