A Concrete Psychological Investigation of Ifá Divination
http://www.scielo.org.co/pdf/rcps/v21n2/v21n2a12.pdf
Abstract
Divination —the consultation of an oracle in order to determine a course for future action— has
long been considered a practice characteristic of
“primitive mentality.” We describe research with
the babalawo of Santería, who are expert in the
divinatory system of Ifá. Our first goal is to offer
an example of what Vygotsky called “concrete
psychology”: the study of particular systems of
psychological functions in the concrete circumstances of specific professional complexes. Our
second goal is to explore the character of divination as psychological and social process, given the
somewhat negative views of divination expressed
by many social scientists, including Lévy-Bruhl
and Vygotsky himself. Analysis of a recorded
consultation identified features characteristic of
institutional discourse. We argue that the institutional facts of divination may constitute an
unfamiliar ontology, but the epistemology —the
appeal to logic and to empirical evidence— is a
familiar one.
Keywords: cultural psychology, higher psychological functions, Lev Vygotsky, divination, concrete psychology, argumentation.
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