Ritual Infrastructure: Roads to Certainty in Two Brazilian Religions
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Ritual Infrastructure : Roads to Certainty in Two Brazilian Religions. / Sjørslev, Inger.
In: Cambridge Anthropology, Vol. 35, No. 2, 30.12.2017, p. 65-78.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Ritual Infrastructure
T2 - Roads to Certainty in Two Brazilian Religions
AU - Sjørslev, Inger
PY - 2017/12/30
Y1 - 2017/12/30
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Brazil
KW - Candomblé
KW - infrastructure
KW - Neo-Pentecostalism
KW - objectification
KW - ritual
U2 - 10.3167/cja.2017.350206
DO - 10.3167/cja.2017.350206
M3 - Journal article
VL - 35
SP - 65
EP - 78
JO - Cambridge Anthropology
JF - Cambridge Anthropology
SN - 0305-7674
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 188232247