LAUSR

Abstract:This article looks through the metaphoric lens of a motor run by electricity at the dynamics of ritual activity surrounding the shrine of a Korean shaman, or mansin. In the mansin's worldview, her own body acts as both a conduit—bringing power back to the shrine—and as a motorized vehicle when she performs a major ritual kut. This intentionally playful metaphorical reimagining of the mansin's shrine as something very like a motor, driven by something very like an electrical connection, opens a conversation about otherwise largely imperceptible connections between people, objects, and things, and how they work in practice Some power flows are stronger than others and some shrines are understood to be more efficacious than others. The Korean mansin's shrine, like any material presence, is a mobile and mutable place, as this metaphoric exercise makes evident.