Dancing at the Thresholds

Dancing at the Thresholds tells the story of communities in Algeria that practice diwan: a nocturnal musical ritual in which practitioners enter various modes of trance to achieve affective "ignition" and emotional release through the body. Seen by other locals as a form of "popular" or "folk" Islam, Algerian diwan exists as a racially identifiable and minority practice embodying centuries of historical trauma rooted in the trans-Saharan slave trade by entwining sub-Saharan pantheons and knowledge with North African religious philosophies and structures. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork alongside archival sources, oral histories, and ritual analysis, author Tamara Dee Turner considers diwan through an affective, embodied lens to challenge mainstream assumptions of affect theory as well as Western approaches to healing and mental health. Instead of separating emotional influences from cultural environments or conscious thoughts, diwan practitioners carefully cultivate a specific atmosphere, or hal, that allows them to reach the trance-like state where music and bodily movements can navigate the gaps between tradition and modernity, the human and nonhuman, and the sacred and the secular. A much-needed ethnographic approach to the living family lineages, practices, and intimate epistemologies of diwan, Dancing at the Thresholds is a story about the nature of healing and how wellness depends on the respect of wider, affective ecologies beyond both the individual and the human.