Abstract
Kev ua neeb, or Hmong shamanism, has evolved and pluralized immensely in the course of the Hmong diasporic emigration to the United States and elsewhere. State laws, Western biomedicine, institutionalized and new age religions, and other forces of modernity have impacted the traditional Hmong ontological framework in such a way that Hmong Americans have either rejected their spiritual practices entirely or shifted the way they practice their healing rituals—ultimately straining their relationship with an inspirited world. Drawing on guided conversations, ethnographic interviews, the researcher’s lived experience, Hmong history, folklore, and songs, and participant observation of both neeb rituals as well as digitally-mediated discussions of kev ua neeb, this research examines ongoing shifts in contemporary magico-religious healing practices in the Hmong community as they unfold in the Sacramento urban space. Working from the position that Hmong magico-religious beliefs are legitimate and effective in their own right, rather than being functionalist and structuralist in nature like what many early anthropologists believe, this thesis demonstrates that regardless of the external forces and pressures to assimilate present in American society, Hmong people remain attached to an inspirited world and continuously negotiate what kev ua neeb is and what it means to them.