Ordinary Possession: Kinship, Alterity, and the Perils of Selfhood in Pakistan

In this article we theorize ordinary possession as a form of self-estrangement through which tension, kinship pressure, and dissociative states are negotiated in everyday life in Pakistan. Rather than treating <i>jinns</i> as episodic intrusions, we show how their presence is apprehended as part of a relational field in which the boundaries of the self are routinely unsettled. We show how possession makes visible crises of authority and belonging within joint households. Ordinary possession thus names a psycho-ethical process in which the self becomes unfamiliar to itself in ways that allow suffering or resentment to be voiced without direct accusation.