Shapiro-2016-Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

7/24/2019 Shapiro-2016-Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

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Curving the social, or, why

antagonistic rituals in Brazil

are variations on a theme

M a t a n S h a p i r o Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

What can we learn about religious diversity in Brazil if we isolate ritual practices from their sociocultural

surround? Using vocabulary developed by Don Handelman in his framework of ritual in its own right,

I discuss this question in the context of low-income Northeast Brazil. I demonstrate that Afro-Brazilian

possession rites and Christian-Evangelical prayers (oracao) transform the lives of the persons who

practise them in ways that are intrinsic to their self-organization, internal complexity, and

differentiating curves. I consequently argue that these rites are not representations of antagonistic

moral prescriptions for good living but rather variations on a single theme of sociality.

As elsewhere in Brazil, everyday life in the state of Maranhaoisentwinedwithanarrayofotherworldly forces (Eduardo1966 [1948]).TheserangefromGod,HisSonJesus,andtheVirgin Mother to the vast arsenal of saints and enchanted spiritual entities that includecaboclos, voduns, eguns, angels, anddemons (M.M.R. Ferretti 1994). Competingspiritualdoctrines locally perform rituals that set in motion exchange relations with some ofthese forces at theexpense of others, thus producing mutuallyexclusive fields of practice.In this article I will examine this process of differentiation in contemporary Maranhaoby comparing possession episodes in the local Afro-Brazilian doctrine of Tambor de

Mina and prayer (orac ao) ceremonies in various Christian-Evangelical congregations.1

I endorse this comparison for two reasons. First, during respective processesof conversion and initiation, practitioners of Evangelical and Afro-Brazilianspiritual doctrines engage in orac ao and possession so frequently that the ongoingrepetition of these two events marks the public institutionalization of their religiousinvolvement. These two rites thus become contested ethnographic hotspots thatboth fuel and reflect the contemporary struggle for hegemony within the Brazilianpluralistic spiritual economy (Casanova 2013). Yet, to date, literature on religiousdiversity in Brazil lacks a relational comparison of these core rituals, in termsof their internal dynamics as well as of the kinds of ethical subjectivities they

set out to produce. My analysis will begin to address this gap in the Brazilianistliterature.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.)22,47-66CRoyal Anthropological Institute2015


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Second, I want to explicate and expand Don Handelmans insightful proposition tolook at society from the point of view of rituals rather than automatically fixate thescholarly theoretical gaze on the opposing stance, wherein wider social frameworksalways-already contextualize religious events (cf. Kapferer1979). Handelman argues:

What particular rituals are about, what they are organized to do, how they accomplish what they do,are all empirical questions whose prime locus of inquiry is initially within the rituals themselves. The

[analytic] razor slices open vectors of studying ritual within itself and its doing, within its interior

dynamics and practices, and not initially from within the wider sociocultural fields within which

ritual is embedded (2004a:3).

Handelman calls this ritual in its own right: an analytic move that first detaches theevent from its surround in order to examine that which is happening within it andonly then links ritual dynamics with the structures of meaning and action that buttresseveryday life. By applying Handelmans method to antagonistic ritual practices on theBrazilian socioeconomic margins, I will outline exciting new empirical possibilities for

the study of religious diversity in Brazil and beyond.In what follows I will analyse orac ao and possession as self-sustaining systems

that are structured differently from within through differing degrees of complexityand self-organization (Handelman2004a:10-17). Further using Handelmans uniquevocabulary, I will demonstrate that each of these rites curves into its socioculturalsurround in different ways. I will, however, insist that these distinct types of curvaturesare not mere reflections on or a function of inherently antithetical systems of value.Rather, I argue that since in low-income urban Maranhao practitioners of bothEvangelical and Afro-Brazilian religions adhere tocommonnotions of intimacy, familylife, and relatedness, possession andorac aoare best conceived as variations on a single

theme of sociality. I will begin to unpack this argument with a thorough elucidation ofHandelmans analytic razor.

Ritual in its own right: self-organization, complexity, and the curveRituals are social forms (Rappaport 1999: 24-31) that (1) are distinct from everydaypractice; (2) are demarcated in time and space; (3) are formal; (4) are encoded byrules; and (5) convey a meta-message that transcends the activity itself (cf. Handelman1998: 187-9; Seligman, Weller, Puett & Simon 2008: 70). Handelman goes beyond thisdefinition to argue that in the very practice of separating itself from its social surround,the ritual contains the surround, thereby acting on the surround through what is donewithin the ritual (2004a: 12). He thus develops a unique gaze: rather than assumea priori a symbiotic relationship between the flow of everyday life (the surround)and the activities that take place during demarcated ritual events, he treats thoseevents as distinct phenomena that hold together coherently and cohesively from withinthemselves (Baecker2001). He argues:

What we are calling ritual, however loosely, is treated here as a class of phenomena whose forms,

in greatly differing kind and degree, are characterized by interior complexity, self-integrity, and

irreducibility to agent and environment. Thinking of ritual in this way is attempting to recover

aspects of its phenomenality, yet doing so in the domain of the micro, the domain in which ritual

phenomena are practiced (2004a:10).

For Handelman, this is not a purely theoretical abstraction. Rather, ritual inits own right is continuous with what research interlocutors cross-culturally tellanthropologists, namely that rituals are not prosaic; they are deliberately organized



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to do something beyond commonplace experience. Pushing this heuristic to its limits,Handelman thinks of rituals as self-contained systems that compel degrees of self-organization and complexity. Self-organization refers to procedures intrinsic to theritual framework, which regulate action in it and thus generate degrees of autonomyfrom external intervention. In Handelmans words, the phenomenon organizes . . .the phenomenon as it unfolds (2004a:11).2 Degrees of self-organization are linked todiffering levels of complexity, which Handelman associates with the intensity of mentaland emotional states produced within some rituals as opposed to less intense passagesin others. Ritual events that emulate the humdrum of mundane occurrences are morecontinuous with their sociocultural environment and less complex in terms of theirself-organization and internal integrity. Handelman summarizes this as follows:

I suggest . . . that within ritual forms, autopoietic qualities of self-organization and qualities of

complexity go hand in hand. Perhaps the greater the degree of interior complexity within a ritual, the

greater will be its tendency to self-organization. And so, the greater the tendency to self-organization,

the greater the capacity of the ritual for temporary autonomy from its sociocultural surround. Then,

one step further, the greater this relative autonomy, the greater the capacity of the ritual to interiorizethe distinction between itself and its surround and so to act on the latter from within itself, through

the dynamics of the ritual design (2004a:12).3

Handelman conceives of ritual dynamics as literal curves or folds in the continuityof space and time (Deleuze 1993): the more rituals are self-organizatory (sic) andcomplex, the deeper they curve (Handelman 2004a: 12). Once again, this is not ametaphor but an ideography of existential processes taking place within demarcatedritual events (2004a: 15). The curve enfolds as suspension of regular social order, adistinct dynamic that participants feel on both sensorial and cognitive levels, and it isthis experience of enclosure that makes the event temporarily autonomous from its

surround (2004a: 12-13). Handelman ultimately claims that the distinctiveness of ritualsemergesas they form; it is a property of their internal, self-sustaining rhythm.

For example, the complexity at White Hart Lane football stadium on Sundayafternoon is higher than that achieved while waiting in a queue for a London buson Monday morning. This is so not only due to differing levels of effervescence, butalso because the queue albeit structurally distinct from regular movement to and fro is in concert with ordinary activity. After all, people cut queues and cross through them,thus interrupting their self-sustaining integrity. Whereas one reason to watch the matchis the majesty of good football in and of itself (alongside a desire to see Spurs win),the queue is primarily contingent on objectives external to it, such as getting to work

on time. Both these events thus mould time and space in particular ways, but theirrespective curvatures are utterly different. Curvature during the match resembles aparabola: gestures, symbols, and sounds curve inwards and bend to forge participantsexperiences in the transformation of feeling, poise, and tact. In fact, the curve is evenspatially embedded in the rectangular/oval shape of the stadium. Queues, however, arebut a minor diversion from a straight line, almost overlapping with everything thathappens around them. In London, queues literally tend to self-form asstraight lines,and this is not reducible to agent or environment (Handelman2004a:10).

Handelmans razor enables comparison of queues with football matches on thebasis of their dynamics, not their structure (contra Turner 1969). By focusing on

curves, Handelman relinquishes the image of unique ritual events surrounded byconcentric fields of significance against which they are understood and from which theyobtain both their moral and aesthetic properties (Geertz 1973).4 This shift of register



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evinces new analytic descriptions that are ethnographicallydependent on degrees ofinterior complexity, differing levels of autonomous existence vis-a-vis social order,and the particular ways by which the contingency of ritual design is reintegrated intomundane life through time. I now turn to demonstrate how this methodological tool-kitenables rethinking the relations between spiritual doctrines competing for hegemonyin contemporary Brazil.

The ethnographic contextThe state of Maranhao is located in the geopolitical division between Northeast andNorth Brazil, bordering from east to west the states of Piau, Tocantins, and Para. So farI had conducted twenty months of field research in Maranhao, living most of the timein a low-income neighbourhood which I fictionally call Santo-Amaro in the capitalcity Sao Lus. My work included explorations into the cosmogony of local networks ofrelatedness, focusing on how research interlocutors constitute interpersonal relationsboth in the course of mundane encounters and within the procedural procurement of

intimacy with the divine. I thus routinely visited several local Evangelical congregationsand one main Afro-Brazilianterreiro(worship house).

Although moral disagreement between proponents of these two spiritual doctrinesdid surface, differentiation between them boiled down to contrasting typologies ofotherworldly entities with whom practitioners created viable exchange relations(Prandi1997). My interlocutors pragmatically distinguished images of cosmic vitality throughthe phenomenal self-organization of the ritual practices that underscored them, ratherthan that primarily being the result of profound reflection on the mysteries of thesublime (Goldman 2007; Kramer 2005; Pares 2001: 92; cf. Das 2012: 134; Handelman2004b: 214, 219-20). For example, my friend Wilson, a Presbyterian pastor, once

commented:5

My faith in Jesus and anothers faith in entities that possess him are antagonistic [because] whoever

receives these entities later doesnt remember what happened to them . . . Now, I am a channel of

God when He manifests in the world [e.g. glossolalia] but this does not invade my intellect. God

doesnt change my personality; He waits for me to work it out. He gives me tools . . . but He does not

turn off that person who is me.

Wilsons emphasis on ritual action challenges the association of religious life-styles with the truth-value of certain moralizing narratives (Robbins 2009), whichstill dominates the three main analytic modalities dealing with spiritual diversity in

Brazil (Pierucci & Prandi 2000).6 First, there is the rational choice model, whichadvances the assumption that members of Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal churches inBrazil cultivate relations with the Holy Spirit mainly to access faith-healing (Lehmann2007). A prominent advocate of this model, Andrew Chesnut (1997;2003), argues thatconsumer-orientated logics inform worship practice in Brazil from a micro-economicperspective thatcutsacross spiritualdoctrines. In thisformulation, rituals aresignificantethnographically mostly in terms of their practical use-value for the sick and as meansfor the accumulation of socioeconomic capital, rank, or status.

Second, there is the identity politics model (Burdick 1998). Arguing againstsocioeconomic reductionism, Stephan Selka (2005) and John Burdick (2005) delineate

religious discourses as markers of social boundaries in political struggles to overridelong-standing racial discrimination in Brazil (Collins 2011; Gill 1998). They correctlyidentify the paradoxes associated with an essentialist root metaphor of the Brazilian



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Negro constructed as generic to Afro-Brazilian religious practices which collideswith the flexible negotiability characterizing both the colour and religious spectrumsin Brazil (Segato 1998). However, they portray Afro-Brazilian religious sessions andfestivals as arenas for semiotic construction of blackness that empower marginalizedAfro-Brazilian women in particular (Sterling2010).

Finally, there is the moral hostility model, wherein religious practitioners activelyseek the incorporation of mutually exclusive values into the practice of everyday life.For example, Stephan Selka (2010) argues that Evangelical moral asceticism constitutesa technology of the self (Foucault 2000) through which low-income practitionersof Evangelical faiths differentiate themselves from practitioners of Afro-Braziliandoctrines. Alternatively, Maya Mayblin (2010) illustrates how Catholic prototypes ofethical personhood take part in the production of gendered spaces, thus inspiringsituated power struggles between men and women in the domestic sphere. Both thesescholars focus on intersubjective negotiations of virtue as the social background againstwhich rituals are understood analytically.

Despite obvious theoretical discrepancies, these three frameworks analyse ritualsfrom the point of view of their sociocultural contexts. In the first case, ritual is abouttriumphant inventiveness contextualized as such by the hallmarks of a Lewisian cultureof poverty (Fry & Howe 1975). In the second, it is about forms of resistance (Selka 2005)contextualized by the longue duree failure of Brazilian racial democracy to overridedeeply rooted class and colour hierarchies (Ribeiro 2000). The third concerns thehorizons of personal agency contextualized by the ethical intricacies across discordantreligious praxes (Selka 2010). To reiterate Handelmans general critique, within theseframeworks ritual is perceived and made into a storehouse of symbols and scriptsoriginating in the world outside ritual, activated within ritual in prescribed ways on

predicated occasions, in order to inform and somaticize participants with appropriatemeanings andfeelings related directly to their cultural worldoutside ritual (Handelman2004a:2).

Alternatively, it is possible to endorse Wilsons perspective and think about religiousdiversity in Brazil through core rituals, whichprimarily refer to other ritualsin terms oftheir internal dynamics. I will adopt this method to compare orac aoand possession intheir own terms, that is, as effective means for communicating with the divine. This,however, does not completely obviate the context. As both orac ao and possessionare central to respective processes of Evangelical conversion and Afro-Brazilianinitiation, they slowly elicit differentiation between these competing cosmogonic

projects. Their curves consequently become elements in the gradual constitutionof religious personhood at large, rather than that being primarily the product ofpreconceived moral principles, by which persons somehow a priori become convincedto engage in rituals. I begin to elaborate these claims by turning to possession.

Possession in Tambor de Mina: intense somatic climax with a deepcurvatureTambor de Mina (hereafter Mina) originated in the states of Maranhao and Para inthe middle of the nineteenth century (M.M.R. Ferretti 2000a: 25-7). It draws on theexchange of sacrifice, food, alcohol, and presents with enchanted spiritual entities

(encantados), which takes place during designated or unwitting episodes of possession.Possessing deities are classified into lines (linhas) or nations (nac oes), each stretchinghierarchically from African Orixasat the top, through African vodunsand Catholic



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saints, to spirits of the dead (eguns) and caboclos at the bottom (M.M.R. Ferretti2000b).7 These entities reside and act in what is best described as a parallel reality,to which Mina practitioners refer as the enchanted world (mundo da encantaria).Entities from each of these categories and across the nations transgress the boundariesof the world ofencantariainto the human world in order to possess mediums, oftenunexpectedly (Prandi1997). The overall assemblage of entities that possess a particularmedium is referred to as that mediums chain (corrente), to which he or she is seen to beinterconnected throughout the temporality of possession. Here I will analyse possessionas a ritual with a deep curvature, which gradually transforms sets of relations bothwithin theterreiroand across wider networks of relatedness.

The life-history of Pai de Santo Carlos,8 in whose terreiro in Sao Lus I learnedabout Mina cosmology, exemplifies this argument. Carlos was born in the hinterland ofMaranhao in the mid-1980s and from a young age suffered from mysterious illnesses.When I was inside my mother, it was the vodumwho took care of me, he explained.[But] when I was born I had many health problems from one hour to the next. I was

already receiving entities at the age of one and two. Carlos was thus sent to live withhis parental grandmother Dona Silvanda in Sao Lus, where he was baptized at theMinaterreiroin which she served asfilha de santo(an initiated dancer). The local Paide Santo applied a service an act of witchcraft which stabilized Carloss condition.Yet the problems persisted, and when he was 7, Carlos experienced his first recordedpossession. He asked for a blessing (benc ao) from Seu Manezinho a caboclofrom theLegua family who was in possession of one of the dancers in theterreiro but when thelatter took his hand to bless it, Carlos fell (cair) into seizures. Carlos described thatmoment as a form of synaesthesia:

It is like you fall into a bottomless pit, no light, as if your heart is about to explode from so muchacceleration. But . . . after this pain goes away, you feel peace . . . It is like the ground was cut open; as

if you try to touch the wall and it turns into water, everything escapes from you . . . it always begins

with dizziness which just gets stronger and stronger. When this happensthat thing has already taken

you, and then it goes by the stages until you are totally possessed (see Fig. 1).

Despite healing rituals he sought throughout his childhood, Carlos continued tosuffer from intermittent, at times violent, possessions.9 His situation only worsened,although he regularly served the entities as a drummer (abatazeiro) at the terreirohe

joined as a child. When Carlos was 15, his unwitting possessions became so frequentthat he had to stop working. Carlos said that this was also accompanied by intervals of

ill health and mental discontent that ultimately culminated in depression. At19, Carloswas drinking heavily and had by then left his teenage wife with the care of their twobabies. Then his life changed:

One day I left the house and went roaming through the streets of the city centre like a madman. I had

no destination. I stopped in front of a house . . . and a person [who stood there] told me I will

take you to a house of one person there. So I went to the house of Arao, the person who paved my

way into Tambor de Mina. At that moment there was an entity possessing him, called Dona Maria

Legua. She told me, I have been waiting for you here . . . Then she told me my whole life-story since

I was born until the time I arrived there at the house . . . she also said I had a burden ( carga), I am

a person that has a [spiritual] position (posicao), and I need to look for a pai de santoto make an Or.

Or in Yoruba means head (Johnson 2002). It is an initiation ceremony thatboth reveals and delineates the main entities responsible for the mediums destiny,personal characteristics, and future worship obligations (S.F. Ferretti 1996).10 Carlos



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Figure 1. Possessed dancers at Carloss terreiro. The circular movement curves bodies, time, and even

space as it distorts sight, sound, and smell. (Photo by the author.)

explained that mediums undertake this process literally in order to organize theirhead (cabeca) and synchronize their capacity to receive (receber) the entities groupedtogether in their chain. Or is crucial because although mediums are predestined toreceive these entities, they cannot simply choose the time and location of possession.The entities themselves are said to compel mediums to abide by their eschatologicalcalling. When possession suddenly strikes, it is therefore treated as inevitable. Ignoringunwitting possessions can cause illness, madness, discontent, or even death. Possessionis thus treated as a pivotal point of connectivity with otherworldly forces, whose socialimplications differ significantly according to the mediums position within or outside

Mina (cf. Stoller1997).Organizing ones head distinguishes uncontrollable episodes of possession popularly

associated with depression and weakness from productive possessions that benefit boththe entities and the medium. As Or incorporated Carlos to a designated flow ofcaboclosand vodums, it routinized possession within a self-organizing process of recursion.Institutionalizing possession thus linked Carloss internal world (which included hisentities) with the sociocultural surround. Evidently, soon after his encounter withDona Maria Legua, Carlos moved in with his new girlfriend, Cleidiane. He beganpractising possession at Cleidianes house and joined an establishedterreiro, where hemade new contacts. Through recurrent possessions he even started enacting witchcraft

for money.11 While initiation publicly confirmed that a transmission of knowledge andsymbolic powers had taken place (Favret-Saada2012), it also singled out possession asthe concrete space in which internal and external worlds collided. As Carlos put it:



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I used to arrive home and Dona Maria Legua used to give me instructions . . . Thatis how my chains (correntes) became aligned, my people (meu povo) began taking theright path; they started working!

Carloss people worked so well that three years after his initiation he managed tobuild his own terreiro in Santo-Amaro. As the story goes, one of his pombagiras12

received money and gifts from the clients who paid Carlos for his services as a witch,and stored this away from his conscious reach. One morning a caboclacalled DonaTeresa possessed Carlos and revealed roughly3,600 BRL accumulated to that point.She then passed the money on to Carloss kinsfolk and ordered them to begin theconstruction of the terreiro. According to Carlos, the entities themselves demanded this,so they would have a place to descend (descer, i.e. manifest). Dona Teresa continued toinstruct the builders daily, and even personally travelled on top of Carlos to purchasebuilding materials in stores.13 Within three weeks, the terreirowas erected. By organizinghis head, Carlos thus gradually transformed destructive linkages with his entities toproductive co-operation, which entailed personal and collective growth.14

I contend that this transformation has become possible only within the accumulativedynamic of Carloss possessions, which folded and unfolded, initially as a deep interiorsense of enclosure and then as a strong push into the surround. In the first stage, thesynaesthesia experienced during possession curved inwards to isolate Carlos frommeaningful others by temporarily suspending his regular mental capacities. Duringthese temporalities, he none the less developed intimate familiarity with his people, ashis close relations with Dona Maria Legua indicate. In the second stage, Carloss entitiesbegan interacting/exchanging with wider local networks of relatedness at home, in theterreiroand in the neighbourhood. Possession thus engendered new intimate linkagesbetween Carlos and meaningful others, both humans and nonhumans. 15 Inspired by

Gregory Bateson, Don Handelman imagines this two-phase dynamic as a smokering, a torus, turning in upon itself, giving itself a separable existence (2004a: 12-13).Handelman describes this transient/emerging structure elegantly:

The social torus is constituted through a double movement: curving inwards, torqueing outwards,

through form recognizing itself within itself, and on the basis of this self-integrity moving outwards,

driving into broader cosmic and social worlds. The double movement simultaneously curving

towards closure and twisting towards openness baldly describes ritual in its own right, separable

yet inseparable from its surround. As separable, ritual can be examined as such. As inseparable, ritual

twists back into relations with the broader worlds within which it is embedded and from which it

takes form (2004a:13).

Like a Mobius-strip loop, possession twisted and torqued into everyday life inways that at once isolated Carlos from and interconnected him with the networksof intimate relations that intersected his person. This exfoliating dynamic recursivelyintegrated these episodes of synaesthetic agitation and self-enclosure into the regularmovement of mundane life. The self-organization and complexity characteristic ofCarloss possessions ultimately endowed his life with a new rhythm and a novelconfiguration of both human and nonhuman kinsfolk. The depth of this curvature isbest appreciated in opposition to Evangelical rites in Maranhao, which work toreduceecstatic sensory alteration by the appropriation of rituals with a relatively flat curve. I

will now turn to analyse these Evangelical prayer rites, which, through delivering andlistening to the Word of God (a palavra de Deus), aim towards the generation of aChristian conscience.



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Oracaoand the making of a Christian conscience in MaranhaoEvangelicals in Brazil distinguish between four main oral performances:orar/orac ao (orate), rezar (pray/prayer), louvar (praise/glorify), and pregar/pregac a(preach/witness). Whileorac aois carried out virtually everywhere and by anyone, theother formulations normally require figures of authority and instituted ritual contexts.Persons thus commonly andspontaneously group together for an orac ao, often standingin a circle and closing their eyes, while one of them speaks to God on behalf of the groupas a whole. I focus on orac aoas a speech act whose relatively flat curvature entails aslow transformation of intimate relations in the mundane.

I will begin with anorac aothat Presbyterian Pastor Darci carried facing the sickbedof40-year-old Genilson, who in 2000 had become quadriplegic after he was shot in theback of the neck by a robber while he was living in S ao Paulo. Genilson has since beenliving with his parents in the countryside of Maranhao, completely helpless and witha notable depression. We stood around Genilsons bed Pastor Darci, Pastor Wilson,Genilsons father, and myself and closed our eyes. We listened to Darcis deep, secure,

voice:

Oh God. God of mercy, God of all-mighty power, you are our sovereign, you are our creator . . . Now,

Lord, you know your stakes in relation to Genilson your son, who has already confessed to you . . .

and is journeying with you in his heart. Lord,helpGenilson, oh Father! Take responsibility over this

life, my God. Oh, beloved God, strengthen his organism, his body, and strengthen also hisconscience,

his thinking, hisideas, hisheart. Beloved God, give himcomfort,give him stability, give himassurance

(confianca), plenty of faith, perseverance, my Lord, [in] your ways and your greatness, so that he will

always be able to talk tothe Lord. With joy we thank you, it is happiness to praise you, and in moments

of difficulty, oh Father, [moments] of pain and tribulation, that he be able to direct his gaze to you

. . . so that he will see your bliss; oh Lord, pour from your bliss, [and some] consolation . . . over this

life. Prevent all discomfort and pain, so that the Lord will be helping Genilson in everything. God!

Look at the other people who reside here and take responsibility, oh my Father (toma conta meu pai)!Help with grace, strength, and health to your children, my Father, take responsibility over this house,

this environment here, the garden, the lands, everything that they grow, Father, help! Pay attention,

God, and bless them. We thank you in the name of Jesus your Son. Amen.

Darcis orac aoincludes a fusion of tenses, pronouns, andspeech styles that intertwinepompous or formal Portuguese with down-to-earth, everyday slang (i.e. now, Lord,

you know your stakes . . . or toma conta). This fusion introduces a heteroglot qualityto Darcis dialogue with God (Bakhtin 1994: 74-80), and this invokes an ideologicalpolyphony shrouded under the authority of a unitarily authoritative voice. 16 Thedifferent socio-ideological groups (Bakhtin 1994: 75) imbued in the text (Faith Culture

followers, peasants, Genilsons family) thus compete over the appropriation of theemotional harmony which is God, rather than simply absorb it effortlessly. Thisunderlying contestation signifies active enhancement and a certain pragmatism thatmanifests in such practices as gazing at and speaking to the Lord. The call for God totake responsibility ultimately constitutes Him as an omnipresent responderrather thana silent bystander.

Importantly, within orac ao, words are not merely indicative, in the sense thatthey do not only convey certain propositions about God or even about indwellingChristian faith. Rather, approaching God by means oforac aoalso necessarily serves asan indirect speech act that targets the crowd of listeners (especially Genilson). As with

Fundamentalist witnessing in the United States, the speakers monologue reinstates arelationship in which the performer assumes responsibility for a display of competence,indirectly instructs the listener about how to interpret messages, and invites, elicits,



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participation (Harding 2000: 42). This way, as Simon Coleman claims, words cometo create the very reality they purport to describe. Words of joy create happiness, andthose of defeat result in despair (2000:131). Beyond devotion, Darci used the power ofwords in order to evoke some sense of joy in Genilson.17

Many of my Evangelical interlocutors in Maranhao claimed that the creative force ofsuch rhetoric is pivotal in the constitution of a Christian conscience and self-control:two aspects of a Protestant representational moral economy that Webb Keane (2002:74-84) characterizes as embodied dematerialization focused on sincerity, authenticity,and subjective freedom. Darcis orac aocould only become meaningful through thisactive pursuit of conscience and spiritual growth. Its congenial style produced theimmanence of complacency, consolation, and perpetual benevolenceas a propertyofcontinuous conversation with God. It repetitively cited the sources and conventions ofspiritual authority (i.e. in the name of Jesus your son) as preconditions for the work ofconscience to emerge. Yet this process of emulation does not mean passive acceptance ofthe narratives of others. Rather, it consummates in the development of an independent,

self-conscious, inner voice. Bakhtin summarizes this brilliantly:

Consciousness awakens to independent ideological life precisely in a world of alien discourses

surrounding it . . . [W]hen thought begins to work in an independent, experimenting and

discriminating way, what first occurs is a separation between internally persuasive discourse and

authoritarian enforced discourse, along with a rejection of those congeries of discourse that do not

matter to us, that do not touch us . . . [O]nes own discourse and ones own voice . . . will sooner or

later begin to liberate themselves from the authority of the others discourse (1994:79).

Through redundant orac oes(as either speaker or listener), the Holy Spirit penetrates

the conscious mind and becomes a voice, a real person, who begins to recast [thepractitioners] inner speech . . . [This] seems to alter the very chemistry of desire(Harding 2000: 47). Under these terms, Darcis orac ao in fact characterizes thecultivation of ongoing affective relationships with God asintrinsicto salvation.Orac aois the site in which this salvation becomes tangible because it does not merely emphasizea metaphysical relationship with God. Rather, these speech acts are utterly social in thesense that they prescribe the acquisition of a particular kind of affective relations withfriends, neighbours, and family members, who all take an active part in this gradualconstitution of a Christian conscience (Birman & Machado 2012). Recursive sequencesoforac oesstructurally demarcate a form for experiential immersion with the positive

affects shared vertically with God, as well as horizontally with meaningfully intimateothers. I now turn to analyse thecurvingdynamic of this process through thelife-historyof Pastor Wilson.

The flat curve inoracaoFor most of his childhood and adolescence, Wilson had been a devoted Catholic and amember of Catholic youth groups in Santo-Amaro. Although already as a teenager hebegan questioning his tutors in church about Catholic saint worship which he beganto think of as literally contrasting with the scriptures Wilson was appointed to teachcatechism as young as 15 years of age. He thus continued to practise Catholicism on a

daily basis for several more years. When he was 20, he nevertheless went through anexperience that was to become foundational to his eventual departure from the CatholicChurch. I quote his narrative at length:



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I served in the army base in Alcantara [across the bay from Sao Lus], so I used to come back home

by boat every other weekend . . . On one of these journeys, about five kilometres from the shore, the

engine exploded and fire broke out. I could not enter the cabin to take a life-jacket because it was

full of black smoke . . . so I stayed on the deck and made an orac aoto God in a loud voice: my Lord

(Senhor), I know that there is no other God but you I know that Maria cannot hear me, I know that

Joao cannot hear me, I know that Sao Pedro cannot hear me, I know that none of the saints can hearme but I know that you can save me, Jesus. And if you save me, I will serve you, I will become a

crente [believer or faithful]. Around me there was panic, the flames were closing in and you could

already feel their heat . . . At first I didnt want to jump into the water because I dont know how to

swim . . . [But] in that moment I cried out loud: Father, my life is in your hands. I climbed to the

other side of the fence, holding, imagining that something must happen so I will be saved. All of a

sudden I felt something next to my leg. It was a life-jacket hung right there from the external side of

the deck. I pulled it towards me and threw myself into the water.

Wilson remained in the water for several hours before he and the other passengerswere saved by rescue ships. Their original ship sunk, causing the death of four people.When he arrived on the shore, Wilson went directly to the Catholic church in Santo-

Amaro, which he says was the only religious reference I had at that time. He describesthat experience vividly:

I entered, soaking wet, barefoot, still in uniform . . . I kneeled down and thanked God. I cried . . .

[because] I have never been in such an intense situation, in such salvation . . . I realized that despite

all that fear something created an impulse in me [to believe that he would be saved]. When I felt that

life-jacket next to my legs I immediately said Thank you, my Lord . . . There was no other life-jacket

fixed in such a way from the outside of the deck. And there were so many people there, how come

none of them saw that life-jacket before I did? I think it was a miracle done for me.

In church, Wilson decided he would actively seek an Evangelical congregation inwhich to serve God. In the following months, he and his wife Tati began attending

sermons and services (cultos) in different Evangelical churches in Santo-Amaro. Theysought the most suitable for their own spiritual convictions. Wilson told me thatduring that time he was continuously communicating with God through daily intervalsoforac oes, asking for the strength to make the right choice. On Holy Friday the next

year, Wilson and Tati attended a service at the Assembleia de Deus (Assembly of God)in Santo-Amaro. When the local pastor started singing about depositing ones life toChrist, Wilson recalled his promise to God:

When they appealed to come forward to the altar and hand your life over to Jesus, I went along.

I felt a huge force from within me, like a magnet that pulls you. It was exactly the same feeling I

had felt on the boat when I did that orac aoto Jesus: I felt shivers throughout my body, I felt that

something is touching me and as if penetrating into my life. At the same time I also felt somethingflowing (fludindo) from me . . . I started crying because of this great peace. Actually the handing-over

(entrega) of my life was there on the boat, but at the church it was a public testimony.

Evolving Christian conscience was the pivotal aspect of Wilsons conversion, whichis methodologically inseparable fromtheappropriation oforac aoasaneffectivemediumof communication with God. Sequences oforac oesthat lasted for years were intrinsic toWilson and his wifes decisions to join the Assembly of God and then, some years later,toleave the congregation and join the Presbyterian Church. The official stamp, theirself-identification as believers (crentes), was celebrated in church; but that merelypublicized an internal shift that had been taking place over a long period of time

through recursive orac oes. Crucially, this gradual process swept through and rearrangeda wide rangeof social relations. Forexample,the couples conversioninfluenced Wilsonsparents and some of his brothers to join Evangelical circles, as well as most of Tatis



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Figure 2. Collectiveoracaoin an Evangelical congregation in Sao Lus. Still bodies form straight lines

that emit a flat curving of time and space. (Photo by the author.)

inner-circle family. They thus began to engage in collective orac oeseither at home orin church. On the other hand, distancing from Catholicism and at a later stage alsofrom the Assembly of God meant the suspension of ties with close friends. Throughtime, collective orac oeshave thus become signifiers for membership in a particularcongregation of believers (see Fig. 2).

The accumulative experience of emotional passages through years of orac oesthus curved from the personal to the public sphere. Orac oes first signified reclusiveconversation between Wilson and God, but then, as markers of collective indebtednessin a community of speakers and listeners, they engendered productive collaborationswith kin and kindred.18 Wilsons newly acquired Christian conscience thus inspired

a thorough rearrangement of the types of intimate relations that constituted hisperson. However, unlike possession, which evinces deep curving with a strong senseof enclosure, orac ao enfolds and unfolds flatly. Its performativity and intensity aresimply too contiguous with everyday discursive dialogues to create a complete vortexinwards. I now turn to compare these two types of curves deep and flat in terms ofthe ethical subjectivities they produce.

Ethics, subjectivity, and relatedness:oracaoand possession as variationson a themeThe rituals I surveyed above are core events that gradually become central activities for

being with others in local spiritual communities. Joel Robbins (2004) calls this gradualprocess of integration moral reorientation: the adoption of new tastes and preferencesthat direct and govern newly acquired religious life-styles. For example, balancing



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between doing good (fazer o bem) and doing evil (fazer o mal) becomes crucial to formsof subjection associated with an Afro-Brazilian religious life-style (Bastide 1978). Or,as I heard several pastors in Maranhao rigorously preaching, overcoming temptation(tentac ao) is a precondition for the reinstatement of the Kingdom of God. Under theseterms, preconceived moral attitudesdirectthat which the ritual is meant to achieve.

Across Brazil, Evangelicals and followers of Afro-Brazilian religions render theircosmogonic disciplines mutually exclusive on such moral grounds. Some of myEvangelical friends in Santo-Amaro, for example, claim that possession is the workof demons who seek to steal, kill, and destroy (robar, matar, e destruir). Amongst Minapractitioners, on the other hand, it is common to condemn Evangelicals as charlatans,money-grabbers, and hypocrites. Carlos even once told me that those practitionersof Mina who also attend Evangelical churches are serving the enemy (cf. Reinhardt2007: 120). All in all, the antagonism is mutual and it is predicated on what at firstglance seem to be competing standards of ethical personhood. And yet, several scholarshave pointed out that Evangelical and Afro-Brazilian faith clusters draw [followers]

from the same social sector: working-class [and lower middle-class] people . . . withlimited educational attainment, low social prestige, and little political power (Selka2010:303). Despite competing moralizing narratives, then, the ritual contexts in whichpractitioners respectively immerse themselves always relate back to complementarynotions of intimacy, relatedness, and sociality.19

Peter Fry and Gary Howe (1975) were the first to make this point. They argued thatEvangelical puritanism overrides socioeconomic inequality by promoting a rationalimage of the world (1975:82), while practitioners of Afro-Brazilian spiritual doctrinesdeny the very hierarchies that constitute their marginalization through an alternativemoral economy based on sorcery and magic.20 Both these attitudes, they claim, become

attractive for potential followers by virtue of their lower-income positioning in theBraziliansocioeconomicuniverse. VagnerGoncalves da Silva (2007a; 2007b)hasrecentlyrefined this argument, claiming that both Evangelicals and Afro-Brazilian adherentsinitially seek to experience religion in the body. Evangelical practices of exorcism,for example, at times pragmatically invoke Afro-Brazilian entities (exus, eguns, and

pombagiras) in order to publically renounce their spiritual authority (Birman 2009).In other words, Evangelicals in Brazil recognize the ontological status of these deities.Silva consequently claims that Evangelical and Afro-Brazilian doctrines in fact dependon each other to extend their moral prepositions and through interchange to affirmtheir own bounded identities:

For these spirits to enter the bodies of people as exusand leave as demons, an operation is required

in which the meanings of the two reference systems [neo-Pentecostal and Afro-Brazilian] previously

overlap and interpenetrate, one at the service of the symbolic efficacy of the other. If not, not only

is it impossible to answer whether theorixas,caboclosand guides are gods or demons, the question

itself makes no sense. Before the terms swap place from one system to another, equivalences need to

be established between themon the basis of the positions that they occupy in their own systems and in

the systems that receive them (2007b, emphasis added).21

This argument treats Evangelical and Afro-Brazilian practitioners in terms of theirintrinsic similarities. Across Brazil, practitioners of these faith clusters are indeedneighbours and relatives, often even co-residents (Almeida 2004). Only rarely do

conversion and initiation entail a radical break from this context of common dwelling,along with its mundane acts of sacrifice, prevalent tropes, and economic exchange(Mayblin 2010; 2014).22 Both the members of Evangelical congregations and persons



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who engage in Afro-Brazilian possession rituals constitute their disjunction from oneanother on discursive epiphanies and ubiquitous scripts operating within hegemoniclocal models of relatedness (Fonseca 2000; Marcelin1999). Ritual action in both thesedoctrines consequently refers back to types of intimate relations that are framed withinthis unified context of relatedness.

This hints at common notions of ethical personhood in low-income Maranhaothat permeate religious phenomena as much as they inform models of relatednessand affective relationality in other social domains, such as the family home or thestreet bar (Linger1992; Shapiro2015; cf. DaMatta 1991). For example, bothorac aoandpossession include notions of play, performance, respect, affect, and reciprocity thatare overwhelmingly familiar to potential devotees. These rituals thus deploy commonbuilding blocks of everyday life in the gradual constitution of distinctly religiousethical subjectivities: within orac aoa flat sense of enclosure emphasizes an affablerelationship with God, which through recursive practice is shared with the plurality ofspeakers and listeners engaged in this kind of communicative action with the divine;

while closure in possession entails the institutionalization of amity relations withentities who torque into the mundane to synchronize new social networks. Respectiveprocesses of conversion and initiation thus evoke commonplaceimageries of intimacy,interconnectedness, and congruity with relatives, friends, and neighbours. They do notpromote completely novel, essentially differentiating, emotive styles (Reddy2001).

This assertion does not go against my research interlocutors moral convictions,nor does it reveal an analytic truth beyond their reach. Rather the contrary: in familyhomes where some members practise Mina or Candomble and others are members ofEvangelical churches, persons heuristically claim they are affectively interconnected onthe basisof co-residenceor kinship linkagesbutintrinsically disconnectedspirituallyor

ideologically, depending on their cosmogonic convictions and degrees of commitmentto ritual practices. Seldom, as I claimed above, does adoption of one life-style or anotherentail radical discontinuity with forms of exchange or residence characteristic of low-income kinship formations on the Brazilian socioeconomic margins (cf. Scott 1996).This is so even in the case of religious attitudes towards sexual morality, itself a contestedissue, on which I cannot elaborate in this article (but see Caulfield 2000; Parker1991;Rebhun 1999). I will suffice with a popular joke, told to me in Evangelical circles,which elegantly captures this point concerning the prevalence, scope, and character ofinfidelity:

An Evangelical pastor once complained to his assistant that his bicycle was stolen. Why dont youemphasize the commandmentthou shalt not stealduring the sermon on Sunday, so that the thief will

regret and return the bicycle? advised the assistant. The pastor agreed but the following Sunday he

simply read the Ten Commandments one by one and moved on to speak on different issues. After the

sermon the assistant approached and asked what happened. Well, answered the pastor, when I got

tothou shalt not commit adulteryI recalled where I forgot the damn bike!23

Orac aoand possession distinctly recalibrate the ethical criteria that interconnectpractitioners with meaningful others (Lambek2010:49).24 The accumulative dynamicof deep curves experienced through the continuous practice of possession is thenintegrated into mundane life differently from the flat curves in orac ao. The fact

these rituals are semi-autonomous spatiotemporal events taking place within theflow of mundane life thus carries profound implications: the curves actively mouldthe kinds of ethical subjectivities these rituals set out to produce, rather than merely



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represent, reflect, or mirror antagonistic images of religious personhood already shapedbefore persons choose to engage in rituals. Analytic properties of complexity, integrity,and self-organization then coincide with heuristic notions of spiritual diversity inMaranhao, which interlocutors describe in terms of ritual efficacy as much as theystress irreconcilable moral ideations (Silva 2007a; 2007b). Rather than present radicallydistinct ethical prescriptions forgoodliving, orac aoandpossessionmaythusberegardedas variations on a single theme of sociality.25

ConclusionDon Handelman looks at rituals in and of themselves, rather than as extensions,suspensions, or functions of mundane activities. In this framework, every socialphenomenon exists in its own right if people recognize it as phenomenal. Handelmanthus promotes a shift from thelogosof thephenomenal to thelogosof thephenomena(2004a:3), wherein difference between phenomena is a matter of degree, ranging fromthe line to the Moebius-strip loop, building self-reference and complexity as it closes

upon itself and then opens to merge with the non-phenomenal. This shift allowsHandelman to focus on the ever-emergent dynamics of social action as an ongoingprocess of formation:

Forming form phenomenal form emerging through practice does not necessitate any principled

distinction between mundane living and ritual. Both domains exist through the forming through

practice of temporary, interactive social units of whatever duration, space, and significance that

rejoin the sociocultural fields from which they emerge. The signal difference between mundane

encounters and ritual may be more in how they self-organize and less in any meta-definition of

sameness and difference from which all else follows (2004a:14).

I employed Handelmans methodological deconstructionism to develop a novel

perspective on religious diversity in contemporary Brazil. One of the difficulties inaccounting for diversity in a pluralistic spiritual economy such as that of Brazilis the continuity of faith clusters (Chesnut 2003), wherein men and women oftenpractise rituals across antagonistic religious modalities. This is typically described inthe literature as a problem (Selka 2010: 292-3) because analysts axiomatically expectpractitioners to immerse themselves fully with coherent sets of moral convictions,aesthetic features, and political projects. Those who oscillate then appear as the bearersof ambivalent cultural practices. Contrarily, when rituals are treated as interchangeabletechniques that emerge from and reconfigure a single kinship universe, there is nothingambivalent about transgression. Competing cosmogonic events make perfect sense in

their relational dialogue with one another as tasks orientated towards similar objectives.Religious diversity then becomes a property of self-organization and interior integritythat regularly unfold into public social domains previously studied in isolation fromone another (e.g. the family home and the Evangelical church).

Describingdiversity in thiswayresists the image of homogeneous spiritualdoctrinesdistinguished across mutually exclusive moral orders that derive their authority fromopposing cosmogonic imaginaries (Mapril & Blanes 2013: 4-5). Rather, diversity heremanifests through different degrees of complexity that curve a unified moral order. Itis less about why certain prototypes of ethical personhood are conjoined with certaintypes of spiritual activities than it is about how effective communication with the

divine is organized within the flow of mundane life. This notion of diversity thenfocuses on common procedures that intra-connect faith clusters from within, ratherthan assuming that respective practitioners a priori accept stagnant moral orders that



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squarely demarcate their faiths from without. I hope this articlewill stimulate colleaguesto explore further the methodological horizons of this proposal.

NOTES

I thank Don Handelman, Joao de Pina-Cabral, Ramon Sarro, Allen Abramson, Martin Holbraad, Matei

Candea, andJRAIanonymous reviewers for their astute comments. I also thank University College London(UCL) Graduate School, the RAI, and the Wingate Foundation for their financial support. Finally, I am

indebted to my friends and research interlocutors in Maranhao for sharing their life-histories with me and

making this article possible.1 I will use the term Evangelicals (Evangelicos) because in Brazil it commonly includes most nominational

and nondenominational Protestant churches (Freston 1999). I will use the Portuguese orac ao rather than

prayer in order to preserve its ethnographic sense, which commonly distinguishes Evangelical worship

practices in Brazil from Catholic prayers[0] (rezas).2 Goffman (1961) observes that people do not require instructions that tell them how to act in public: in

most cases they would spontaneously endorse situated roles vis-a-visone another. He thus argues that the

changing dynamic of the encounter organizes the interaction, and not the contrary.3 Handelman here uses autopoiesis and self-organization interchangeably, although these two terms

differ in meaning. Autopoiesis refers to self-generation, which requires that the components of the system,through their operations, further produce the components which constitute the system (Kay2001:466; cf.

Bausch2002:601). Self-organization, by contrast, is the operation of a self-regulating mechanism within the

phenomenon. I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for his or her comment on this issue.4 Handelman (2004a:2-3) outlines three modalities to the study of rituals in anthropology: (1) model-of

model-for; (2) its closely related function-of function-for; and (3) the playground analysis, wherein ritual

is yet another arena for the performance of competition or resistance.5 All names used in this article are pseudonyms.6 Pierucci and Prandi (2000) build an image of clearly demarcated spaces of religious practice defined by

institutional affiliation.7 Caboclosare the most common type of entities that manifest in theterreiro. Mundicarmo Ferretti defines

caboclosas spiritual protectors of an inferior hierarchic level to thevodunsandgentisthat are never confused

with these latter entities or with Catholic saints (2000b:74).8 Pai(for men) orm ae(for women) de santois the term used to refer to the head of a worship house

(terreiro), a position of spiritual authority equivalent to priesthood.9 Somepossessionepisodesmerely manifest in muscular convulsions and slight disorientation.Others may,

however, include expressive rage or panic, as well as unwitting bodily convulsions that throw persons into

walls and out of windows. For example, the spirits of a transgendered person called Iris from Santo-Amaro

once tried to set her beautiful long hair on fire while she was possessed.10 Mina houses in Sao Lus were initially divided between Jeje and Nago nations, although their ritual

observations differed only slightly. Contemporary houses are syncretized and hence referred to as Jeje-Nago.

In both these traditions the mediums head is owned by three main orixas; various kinds ofvoduns(who

represent aspects of theorixas personalities and serve them through the enactment of magic); and an infinite

number ofcaboclos.11

Possession is a precondition for witchcraft because it serves as a literal junction or a point of connectivitybetween the client and the entities, who bear and carry the magic.12 Pombagirasare female entities associated with lust, vanity, and explicit sexuality. They are often the

bearers and operators of witchcraft services (see Hayes2008).13 Being on top is local slang for possession. It is an analogue for a horse and rider, whereas the medium

becomes a horse controlled by the entity that rides on top.14 During my fieldwork in 2009-10, Carlos had five filhos(sons and daughters) de santowhom he had

initiated into Mina; three irmas(sisters) de santo, who followed him from the terreiroin which he was

initiated; several helpers; and onemae de santo(Carloss paternal grandmother, Dona Silvanda).15 What I called intimacy with the world ofencantariaat times even manifests itself in erotic desire, as

some persons marry entities and build families with them.16 Byheteroglossia, Bakhtin describes the coexistence of distinctive varieties within a single narrative. It is

possible to decode various different subject-positions hiding within a single speech style.17 J.L. Austin argues that everyday life is replete with situations by which saying something is doing

something (1962:12). By saying I do in a marriage ceremony, for example, a person is not merely reporting

on reality but actually producing it.



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18 Wilson has taken part in other Evangelical rituals, such as healing sessions and glossolalia. I none the

less argue thatorac aohas become the most crucial element in his conversion because its acquired rhetorical

style (also used in healing rituals) located him within a particularly Evangelical cosmos. In a follow-up visit

to Maranhao in2012, Wilson confirmed this assertion.19 I use the term sociality, which entails a sense of fluidity, as opposed to the static image of the social.

What is in order, Long and Moore (2013

: 2

) write, is not a highly specific, circumscribed definition ofsociality . . . but rather a theory of human sociality . . . that can account for . . . its plasticity and fragility,

and also its possible resilience (quotes and italics omitted).20 Note that this discussion precedes the neo-Pentecostal renaissance in Brazil and the rise of Charismatic

Christian doctrines that overtly use magic and glossolalia as means of communication with the divine.21 In this structural analysis, Exu is the equivalent of Jesus in a system of symbols and meaning that is

shared by all potential believers, who generally fit into a similar sociological profile.22 In Santo-Amaro I know of only one small Evangelical congregation whose members withdrew from

everyday life and lived in a commune. Wilson looked down on such non-denominational congregations as

back-of-the-yard churches (igreja de fundo de quintal).23 During fieldwork, many of my Evangelical friends commonly and openly told such jokes precisely

because infidelity was a popular topic for gossip in Santo-Amaro (see Shapiro 2011). See also Hautzinger

(2007:69-71) on adultery in a low-income neighbourhood in the Brazilian state of Bahia.24 Michael Lambek (2010) claims that ordinary interactions always include obligation, debt, and sacrifice

as well as honour, pride, and self-interest. Situated encounters recalibrate the compromises persons

continuously makevis-a-visone another in order to remain ethical.25 Further study is required focusing on the intersections between gendered emotional labour and the

experience of ritualized curvatures in both these spiritual doctrines.

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Courber le social, ou : pourquoi des rituels bresiliens antagoniques sont desvariations sur un theme

Resume

Que peut nous apprendre la diversite religieuse du Bresil si nous isolons les pratiques rituelles de leur

contexte socioculturel ?A laide du vocabulaireelabore par Don Handleman dans son approche du rituel

en et pour lui-meme , lauteur discute de cette question dans le contexte des r egions defavorisees du

Nordeste bresilien. Il demontre que les rites de possession afro-bresiliens et les prieres des chretiens

evangeliques (orac ao) transforment la vie de ceux qui les pratiquent en fonction de leur organisation

interne, de leur complexite et de leur courbes de differenciation. En consequence, il avance que ces rites



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ne sont pas des representations de prescriptions morales antagoniques sur ce qui constitue une bonne vie,

mais plutot des variations sur le theme de la vie sociale.

Matan Shapiro is a Kreitman School for Advanced Studies Postdoctoral Fellow and a Teaching Fellow with

the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Human and Social

Sciences Building (72), P.O. Box653,84105, Israel. [email protected]

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.)22,47-66

Shapiro-2016-Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

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