Description: This anthropological account of a Catholic community in East Africa reveals how Catholicism came to have widespread acceptance in Southern Tanzania and how this history currently affects practicing Catholics. Maia Green provides a descriptive account of those considering themselves Catholics in Eastern Africa in relationship to Western assumptions of "conversion". She thus encourages a new approach to the consequences of large-scale shifts in religious affiliation. The book also contains information about other ritual practices concerning kinship, aging and death.
Brief description: MAIA GREEN is Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester
Review Quotes: "The author's main argument... is well taken, while her focus on contemporary social and ritual practice is informative.... The ethnographic material is rich, and her theoretical perspective is sophisticated." Choice