Thera S. A. Rasing (Leiden University)

Submitted:  Fri, 9 June 2000


Dr. Thera S. A. Rasing
Afrika-Studiecentrum
Leiden University
P.O. Box 9555
2300 RB
Leiden
The Netherlands

phone:   +31-71-5273363
fax:     +31-71-5273344
e-mail:  Rasing@fsw.leidenuniv.nl


Afrika-Studiecentrum Web site: http://asc.leidenuniv.nl


Ms. Thera Rasing is an anthropologist and working on a Ph.D project on
girls' initiation rites in urban Catholic communities on the Zambian
Copperbelt. Initiation rites deal with female identity and ethnicity.
Despite globalisation, christianity and urbanisation these rites continue to
be performed, even among well-educated urban women. The main research
question is why initiation rites are popular among middle-class, christian
women in towns.

Current research:

Girls' initation rites in an urban Roman Catholic community in Zambia 

Publications:

Passing on the rites of passage. Girls' initiation rites in the context of
an urban Roman Catholic community on the Zambian Copperbeld. Aldershot,
Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 1995.

"Globalization and the making of consumers: Zambian kitchen parties." 
In: R. Fardon et al. (eds.) Modernity on a Shoestring. Dimensions of
Globalization, Consumption and Development in Africa and Beyond, pp 227-246,
London / Leiden: EIDOS / ASC / CAS, 1999.