Ritual Infrastructure

Roads to Certainty in Two Brazilian Religions

in The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
Author:
Inger Sjørslev University of Copenhagen inger.sjoerslev@anthro.ku.dk

Search for other papers by Inger Sjørslev in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed Close
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/cja.2017.350206
Keywords:
Brazil; Candomblé; certainty; infrastructure; Neo-Pentecostalism; objectification; ritual
Restricted access

All currencies in US Dollar

PayPal Logo

Abstract

This article compares the ways in which two different religions in Brazil generate roads to certainty through objectification, one through gods, the other through banknotes. The Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé provides a road to certainty based on cosmological ideas about gods whose presence in ritual is made indubitable through performance and social consensus. Candomblé has historically gained its spiritual force by being both marginal to mainstream religion and spatially peripheral. In contrast, the Neo-Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is located in easily accessible places within urban life. There is a certain parallel between these different locations and the difference in ritual roads to certainty in the two religions. The article draws out connections between different levels of infrastructure – material, spatial and ritual. The comparison between the two religions points to a social imaginary that in both cases has to do with how to deal with indeterminacies in life through objectification.

Contributor Notes

Inger Sjørslev is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. She has done fieldwork in Brazil over many years, and her latest publications related to this are a book on material culture in which a chapter draws on empirical material from Candomblé, Ting i nære og fjerne verdener (Aarhus University Press, 2013), and ‘The Magic of the Gestalt: Forms and Fetishes in the Realms of Rationality’, in V. Steffen et al. (eds.), Between Magic and Rationality: On the Limits of Reason in the Modern World (Museum Tusculanum Press, 2015).

  • Collapse
  • Expand
Cover The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
14
Keywords:
Brazil; Candomblé; certainty; infrastructure; Neo-Pentecostalism; objectification; ritual
Print Publication Date:
01 Sep 2017
Online Publication Date:
01 Sep 2017
Copyright:
© The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 2017

  • Almeida, R. 2009. A Igreja Universal e seus demônios: Um estudo etnográfico. São Paulo: Editora Terceiro Nome.

  • Amin, A. 2014. ‘Lively Infrastructure’. Theory, Culture & Society 3 (7/8): 137–161.

  • Bastide, R. 1978. The African Religions of Brazil: Toward a Sociology of the Interpretation of Civilizations. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Brown, D. 1986. Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press.

  • Capone, S. 2010. Searching for Africa in Brazil: Power and Tradition in Candomblé. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

  • Christensen, S. F. and M. Kolling. 2014. ‘Brasilien’. In N. Bjerre-Poulsen et al. (eds), Verdens magter. Copenhagen: Ræson Medier, 156–187.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Csordas, T. J. (ed.). 2000. Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Douglas, M. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Pollution and Taboo. Oxford: Routledge Classics.

  • Goldman, M. 2007. ‘How to Learn in an Afro-Brazilian Spirit Possession Religion: Ontology and Multiplicity in Candomblé’. In R. Sarró and D. Berliner (eds), Learning Religion: Anthropological Approaches. Oxford: Berghahn Books, 103–119.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Goldman, M. 2009. ‘An Afro-Brazilian Theory of the Creative Process: An Essay in Anthropological Symmetrization’. Social Analysis 53 (2): 108–129.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Holbraad, M. 2012a. ‘Truth beyond Doubt: Ifá Oracles in Havana’. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2 (1): 81–109.

  • Holbraad, M. 2012b. Truth in Motion: The Recursive Anthropology of Cuban Divination. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Ishii, M. 2016. ‘Caring for Divine Infrastructures: Nature and Spirits in a Special Economic Zone in India’. Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 82 (4): 1–21.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jensen, T. G. 2002. ‘In Between Contradictions: A White Invention of an African Tradition in Southeast Brazil’. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kolling, M. 2016. ‘New Houses, New Lives’. Ph.D. diss., University of Copenhagen.

  • Kramer, E. 2005. ‘Spectacle and the Staging of Power in Brazilian Neo-Pentecostalism’. Latin American Perspectives 32 (1): 95–120.

  • Lambek, M. 2003. ‘Choking on the Quran: And Other Consuming Parables from the Western Indian Ocean Front’. In W. James (ed.), The Pursuit of Certainty: Religious and Cultural Formulations. London: Routledge, 259–284.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Larkin, B. 2013. ‘The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure’. Annual Review of Anthropology 42: 327–343.

  • Lindhardt, M. 2011. Practicing the Faith: The Ritual Life of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christians. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

  • Macedo, E. 2000. Orixás, Caboclos e Guias: Deuses ou demonios? Rio de Janeiro: Editora Unipro.

  • Matory, J. L. 2005. Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Meyer, B. 2010. ‘Aesthetics of Persuasion: Global Christianity and Pentecostalism’s Sensational Forms’. South Atlantic Quarterly 109 (4): 741–763.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Miller, D. 2005. Materiality. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

  • Mitchell, J. and M. Bull (eds). 2015. Ritual, Performance and the Senses. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

  • Oro, A. P. 2011. ‘Algumas interpelações doPentecostalismo no Brasil’. Horizonte, Belo Horizonte 9 (22): 383–395.

  • Pitt-Rivers, J. [1992] 2011. ‘The Place of Grace in Anthropology’. Reprint. HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 1 (1): 423–450.

  • Prandi, R. 1991. Os Candomblés de São Paulo. São Paulo: Editora Hucitec.

  • Robbins, J. 2004. ‘The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity’. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 117–143.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sjørslev, I. 1999. Glaube und Bessessenheit: Ein Bericht über die Candomblé Religion in Brasilien. Gifkendor: Merlin Verlag.

  • Sjørslev, I. 2004–2005. ‘On Leaving the Field: Closure and Continuity as Seen through the Lens of the Candomblé Axexé Ritual’. Folk, Journal of the Danish Ethnographic Society 46/47: 11–40.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sjørslev, I. 2012. ‘The Material Subject as Political: Style and Pointing in Public Performance’. Anthropological Theory 12 (2): 209–228.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sjørslev, I. 2013. ‘Boredom, Rhythm, and the Temporality of Ritual: Recurring Fieldwork in the Brazilian Candomblé’. Social Analysis 57 (1): 95–109.

    • Crossref
    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sneath, D., M. Holbraad and M. A. Pedersen. 2009. ‘Technologies of the Imagination: An Introduction’. Ethnos, Journal of Anthropology 74 (1): 1–26.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Turner, V. [1967] 1989 The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  • Turner, V. 1974. Liminal to Liminoid in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology. Houston, TX.: Rice University Studies.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Vannini, P. (ed.). 2009. Material Culture and Technology in Everyday Life: Ethnographic Approaches. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Metrics

All Time Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 1039 560 15
Full Text Views 67 8 0
PDF Downloads 54 11 0