Shamans, Nostalgias, and the IMF: South Korean Popular Religion in Motion

Laurel Kendall is an anthropologist specializing in Korean shamanism, and this academic book, published by University of Hawaii Press, examines how Korean shamanic practice, mudang ritual, has adapted to and been shaped by modern economic and political forces, drawing on Kendall's own long term ethnographic fieldwork with practicing shamans. Its strength is sustained direct ethnographic access across decades, letting Kendall trace real change in the practice over time rather than presenting a single static snapshot. Its limit is that it focuses specifically on the practitioners and communities Kendall worked with in South Korea, and shamanic practice varies across different regional traditions and lineages within Korea, so it should be read as a documented account of the specific practice she studied rather than a universal description of Korean shamanism.