Biblical Echoes and Communal Home in Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones

Jesmyn Ward’s second novel, Salvage the Bones (2011), offers a literary account of an African American family in dire poverty struggling to weather the horrors of Hurricane Katrina on the outskirts of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi. This article focuses on the novel’s ‘ideology of form’, which is premised on biblical models of narration —grounded on a literary transposition of The Book of Deuteronomy— that serves to portray the victimization of African Americans in mythical tones to evoke the country’s failed covenant between God and his chosen people. It also brings into focus the affective bonds of unity and communal healing relying on the idiosyncratic tenet of home understood as national space— following Winthrop’s foundational ideology. As I will argue, the novel contends that the revamped concept of communal home and familial bonds —echoing Winthrop’s emblem of national belonging— recasts the trope of biblical refuge as a potential tenet to foster selfassertion and to rethink the limits of belonging and acceptance.

Self and Communal Healing by Vocalizing Chakra Toning Sounds While Dancing in Raves and Parties

While dancing in raves and parties people tend to spontaneously vocalize vowels which accurately resemble what is commonly known as Chakra Toning Sounds. This sonic observation raises the hypothesis that people instinctively and intuitively heal themselves by balancing and activating their own chakras with their voice. To test and verify this hypothesis a survey was conducted in which 96 participants were asked to share their experience about the voices they produce and hear in raves and parties while dancing. The majority of participants reported to use their voice and hear others use their voice with Chakra Toning Sounds. An interesting observation suggests that a communal effect is created by this action, in which self healing informs and encourages communal (group) healing, possibly underlying collaborative and collective healing.

“Are You Sure, Sweetheart, That You Want to Be Well?”: The Politics of Mental Health and Long-Suffering in Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters

In analyzing the woman-centered communal healing ceremony in Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, this article considers how these types of womb-like spaces allow female protagonists to access ancestral and spiritual histories that assist them in navigating physical illnesses and mental health crises. It employs Bell Hooks’ Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery alongside Arthur Kleinman’s definition of illness as social and transactional to demonstrate that the recognition of illness, and the actualization of wellness, necessitates collective and communal efforts informed by spiritual and cultural modes of knowledge, including alternative healing practices and ancestral mediation.

Oppositional Designs: Examining How Racial Identity Informs the Critical Design of Art and Space

This study develops upon recent scholarship about subversive design that emerged in response to hegemonic structures such as capitalism, by introducing how racial identity informs disruptive design practices. Based upon a two-year ethnography with nine black artists during a period of racial unrest, this study presents how their experiences as black Americans informed distinctive, critical design dispositions. The participants’ deeply personal and labor-intensive design processes were both technical and political processes that involved intense prototyping, research and self-reflection. Their designs resulted in oppositional films, photography exhibits and paintings that contested racial metonymy through visceral and visual discourses that present black identities and histories within a more complex racial language. The participants also designed empathic spaces where oppositional discourses could take root and that supported communal healing, mourning and celebration. The ethnographic accounts of this study offer a meaningful way to engage and bridge scholarship about race, design and oppositional art.

“Bringing Things Together"

The article applies the concept of tribalography, as defined by LeAnne Howe, to examine two novels by Frances Washburn, Elsie's Business and The Sacred White Turkey in order to demonstrate how Washburn participates in the discourse of native languages revitalization and thus offers an interesting comment on the potential of communal healing.

Emerging from the reds, greens and stripped screws: a communal healing process

The article posits that the field of community development does not adequately engage with intergenerational communal wounding. A family support programme, developed in vulnerable communities in South Africa, was used as case study to investigate the feasibility of healing within community development. The articulation of a clear storyline to guide the process was identified as critical. The programme’s storyline unfolded in four episodes: facing the past (reds and greens); exploring current manifestations thereof (labels, secrets, obscured desires and projections); naming debilitating problems (the screws) to elicit a yearning for healing and action and creating new life stories. Reflection and mirroring through group work were identified as critical elements in this approach. The study concludes that while participants originally accepted the (false) messages/images resulting from oppression and discrimination uncritically, a more authentic self gradually emerged, which directed transformative action (underscoring the Freirean concept of conscientisation). The study invites further debate/research on issues, such as personal healing within group context; the dilemma of risk-and-failure; the slow nature of healing versus organisational demands; and the balance between promises for material improvement and healing. The study shows that communal healing work is both feasible and critically needed within the community development context and offers a practical way to realise this.

NGALAI RITUAL : A COMMUNAL HEALING PERFORMANCE

This study delves into the ngalai ritual performance practiced by Bajau Samah community in Kota Belud, Sabah, Malaysia which serves as a healing method. The study was done using a qualitative approach through the ethnographic strategy application concentrating on the relationship between behaviour and culture. In terms of performance, ngalai is a combination of the elements of dance, singing, music and acting. Traditionally, the ngalai ritual is performed for healing purposes that is based on the animistic religious beliefs which is derived from believe in the existence of spirits (metaphysical entity). Individual who is able to see spirits is said to be capable and have the privilege of curing a disease caused by tulah (plague) due to the interference of spirits. “The community of ngalai practitioners believe that the physical world is influenced by the metaphysical world, especially where it concerned the existence of other worldly beings, the myths and spirits associated with their ancestors. They also believe that the places they inhabit are also shared with the presence of these other worldly, spiritual beings. Based on these beliefs, offerings are prepared and rituals are done in the ngalai performance with the main aim of respecting and asking permission from these spiritual beings to help with the healing process.” The healing aspect in ngalai is categorized as communal healing as well as “faith healing”, referring to “the ritual practice that relates to religious beliefs and healing” that happen following the method adopted involving patients and the public. Thus, this study seeks to present a justification of ngalai ritual performance that serves as a medium of healing and is still significant in the present context.