Possessions and Performances or, Is the Play the Thing?

In Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, Mambo Karen McCarthy-Brown spoke of "possession-performances, which blend pro forma actions and attitudes with those responsive to the immediate situation." (McCarthy-Brown, Mama Lola, 6).  In a footnote she emphasized that she used possession-performance "not to indicate that possession is playacting, but to…