This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Eisenlohr, P. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Technologies of the spirit

Devotional Islam, sound reproduction and the dialectics of mediation and immediacy in Mauritius

Utrecht University, The Netherlands, p.eisenlohr{at}uu.nl

Users of contemporary media technology in religious settings often oscillate between immediacy in spiritual interaction and the increasing complexity and visibility of media technology as human artifacts. Drawing on approaches to mediation from philosophy and media theory, I examine Mauritian Muslims’ uses of sound reproduction in performing a devotional genre to show how theological assumptions about mediation shape the domestication of media technology in religious settings in different ways. A semiotic approach can throw new light on the dialectics of mediation and immediacy that frequently result in searches for technical solutions to bypass established forms of interacting with the divine.

Key Words: Islam • Mauritius • media technology • mediation • semiotics • sound reproduction

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 9, No. 3, 273-296 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1463499609346983


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?