Paper short abstract:

The present work analyses the interface between Quimbanda, food and the digital environment. Quimbanda is an Afro-Brazilian faith that has grown in the virtual universe through consultations and other uses of digital media. We analyse the production of food in the fabrication of the online spell.

Paper long abstract:

The present work analyses the interface between Quimbanda, food and the digital environment. Quimbanda is an Afro-Brazilian faith that has grown in the virtual universe through consultations and other uses of digital media. We analyze the production of food in the fabrication of the online spell.

Besides analysing the Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram pages of these religious groups, we interviewed and followed the daily life of a master, and also carried out bibliographical research on the subject. In their daily practices, the Quimbandeiros use the Internet as a space for interaction, for daily practices of care and in the manufacturing of spells. Much of the production of the spell involves great manufacture of food and in the production of multiple substances that make up the digital scenario of part of the posts about this religious practice.

We analyse how digital interaction presents this religious belief in the virtual public sphere and the interconnections between food, religious and technological narratives. We observed a circuit that includes practitioners in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais and in the Northeast (Pernambuco and Bahia/Quimbanda das Almas) and in other countries such as Portugal, Belgium, Australia and England.