Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
José Mapril
(Center for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), Universidade Nova de Lisboa)
Guillermo Martín-Sáiz (Durham University)
Cristina Rocha (Western Sydney University)
Clara Saraiva (ICS, University of Lisbon)
Send message to Convenors
- Formats:
- Panels
- Sessions:
- Thursday 23 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
How does religious mobility fare in a context in which nationalism(s) and populism(s) are growing and movement is being curtailed and segmented? In such a context, how is religion and mobility used in the making of moral hierarchies in European societies?
Long Abstract:
In the past decades, we have been studying mobile religions focusing on institutions, people, materialities, practices, beliefs, media, and cyberspace. But how does religious mobility fare in a world of walls, nationalisms, populisms, and segmented mobilities? In Europe, Christianity is frequently perceived as the religion of the land, becoming part of several nationalistic imaginaries and heritages. In this context, other religious practices are deemed 'matter out of place'. The growth of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism revealed in construction of a homogeneous Muslim subjectivity and the contestations over the construction of mosques or minarets are cases in point. Simultaneously, there have been also hostile responses to 'noisy' Pentecostal churches in European cities. All these reveal an isomorphism between religion and place, which implies the construction of religious others (e.g., "immigrant religions" vs "native religions"), radical alterities and moral hierarchies.
In this panel, we ask: what is the impact of such dynamics on religious mobilities, practices and experiences? How do these populist agendas impact on religious fields; and how these define who is entitled (and excluded) from making claims? Which religions become heritage and what does this tells us about the making of autochthony and nativisms? In such a context, what are the ways in which religion and mobilities (migrants, refugees, tourists) are entangled? What is the role of imagination, materiality, cyberspace, and asymmetries of power on the ways in which religions move or get stuck? We would like presenters to address these broad themes, both from an ethnographic and/or theoretical perspective.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 23 July, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
I demonstrate how, in the laïc French socio-political landscape, Catholic religious observance positions racialised subjects in closer proximity to whiteness—at least from the perspective of the white subject—a proximity that is contextual, uncertain, and unsettled.
Paper long abstract:
Recent research has shown how the French state has adopted a form of 'republican nationalism' (Dikeç 2007) that regards 'communitarianism' as a threat to universal 'republican values'. As a core republican value, laïcité (secularism) has been open to interpretation since its foundation in law in 1905. Whereas its origins were rooted in a will to lessen or abolish the influence of the Catholic Church in France, today it is often deployed in an attempt to regulate and control Muslim religious practices, which are viewed as a 'threat' to the laïc republic and its 'Christian traditions'. In this context, where formerly-adverse far-right populist parties have embraced and shaped the discourse on laïcité as a way to 'defend' the republic, people that are perceived to have multiple loyalties, whether to another nation state or religion, are viewed in opposition to the 'universal' (white) French subject and therefore as less 'French'. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted in Paris in 2013-2014 and 2019, I explore the construction of the 'universal' French subject and how Catholicism renders certain migrants less 'Other' and hence more acceptable and approachable in secular France. I demonstrate how, in the laïc French socio-political landscape, Catholic religious observance positions racialised subjects in closer proximity to whiteness—at least from the perspective of the white subject—a proximity that is contextual, uncertain, and unsettled.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the infrastructures that allow the Australian Pentecostal megachurch Hillsong to expand into Brazil. I argue that these infrastructures communicate success, excitement, modernity, and cosmopolitanism to a Brazilian middle-class audience that aspires to become global citizens.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the infrastructures that allow the Australian Pentecostal megachurch Hillsong to expand globally. I focus on its expansion to Brazil, allegedly the largest Pentecostal country in the world with its own share of megachurches. Hillsong is a global religious phenomenon. It has branches in many global cities, American celebrities among its followers, and an award-winning worship band that tours the world. Hillsong established a branch in an upmarket neighbourhood of São Paulo in late 2016, after much pleading from Brazilian fans of the church and its band. Drawing on four years of multi-sited ethnography in Australia and Brazil, I analyse the ways in which the transnational connections between the two countries are supported by particular infrastructures, be they the smart church buildings and their hip soundscapes in São Paulo and Sydney, Hillsong's cool use of digital media, Hillsong merchandise, Hillsong network programs and teaching resources, Brazilian Christian travel agencies, and so forth. I argue that these infrastructures communicate success, excitement, modernity, and cosmopolitanism to a middle-class audience that aspires to break with local traditions, and become global citizens. Such infrastructures create a transnational urbanscape through which Brazilians are able to inhabit and feel they belong to the 'centre' spiritually, physically and aesthetically.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the religious experience of migrant African-Australian women living in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. For all of them, their Christian faith, and their participation in Pentecostal-charismatic (P/c) churches, have played a key role in helping them to make sense of their migration experiences, and to navigate the multiple political fields in which they are located.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores the religious experience of African-Australian women living in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. From 2001 onwards, an increasing number of Africans have migrated to Australia, a majority of them as refugees from East African conflict zones, a smaller percentage as education, ‘skilled migrant’ (i.e. professional), and business entrants. For the women we have interviewed – as part of an Australian Research Council-funded project on African Christianities in Australia – these journeys were mostly made when they were young children, such that the complexities of their migration and settlement experiences have been overlaid with the the everyday challenges of growing up, and of becoming women. For all of them, these complexities have been further exacerbated by the variegated, and overlapping, political dynamics of their own Diasporic communities – whether Burundian, Congolese, Rwandese, etc. – of being ‘African’ in Australia, and of being Black (in a more cosmopolitian sense). For all of them, their Christian faith, and their participation in (usually multiple) Pentecostal-charismatic (P/c) churches, have played a key role in helping them to make sense of their experiences, and to navigate the (at times treacherous) political fields in which they find themselves. As an intervention into recent debates in the Anthropology of Christianity, we argue that in this context the appeal of P/c Christianity may lie less in its promise of moving ‘upwards’, so much as in the possibilities it affords as a set of ‘tactics’ for making sense of, and for navigating, within and between complex political fields.
Out of support for our research interlocutors, who like many Black people across the world experience everyday systemic racism, we also offer this paper in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter.
Paper short abstract:
The new Portuguese nationality Law has been granting citizenship to thousands of descendants of Sephardic Jews. This paper presents the results of an online ethnography conducted in the contemporary social media webpages created by the Brazilians who seek Portuguese Nationality under that law.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2015, an amendment to Portugal's Law on Nationality allows descendants of Portuguese Jews who were expelled in the Portuguese Inquisition to become citizens if they 'belong to a Sephardic community of Portuguese origin with ties to Portugal.' From that year, over thirty thousand people who were able to prove that they were descended from Portuguese Jews, have acquired Portuguese citizenship, some immigrated to Portugal and several others are still in the process of applying for naturalization. Among these applicants, the Brazilians naturally stand out among other countries in terms of the creation of information exchange networks in Portuguese language, concerning the process of acquiring the Portuguese citizenship. What characterizes these applicants from Brazil? What kind of information, concerns and support are they seeking or sharing? What are their expectations regarding the Portuguese citizenship and reactions when they acquire it? Do they intend to migrate to Portugal? The study aims to stress these questions, aiming to shed light on the applicant´s mindsets who use the social media webpages, analysing the narratives / messages they produce, through an online ethnography.
Paper short abstract:
This paper asks what function games such as the billiards, the Playstation, and the flechettes serve in a mosque association, and investigates their efficacy in deterring men from spending time in other venues outside.
Paper long abstract:
Islam is often considered an itinerary religion. Today, in Europe, Islam continues to retain its itinerary nature as many migrant men define themselves through the Islamic faith. Its itinerary quality, however, is as much a cherished part as it is feared. Mobility, of man and woman alike, is feared for movement of the body across borders, and from the confines of home and mosques spaces which are expected to be pure to workspaces and outside, which are deemed to be contaminated with pollution of a moral kind, leaves Muslims vulnerable to their "nefs", that is, the carnal desires of the mortal body, thereby encouraging them to sin. For my interlocutors in Strasbourg, Turkish men and their France-born second and third generation offspring, excursions after work constitute a moral concern as men, rather than going home to their families, or to mosque associations for ethical cultivation, wander around the borderland, killing time in coffeehouses, each other's snack doner shops and restaurants, apartment-fronts, and in certain instances, casinos and brothels. In this paper, I investigate how mosque associations attempt to curb's male mobility in Strasbourg, and the wider Franco-German borderland region. Rather than consider the mosque as solely a space of ethical cultivation, I explore leisurely activities organized within its confines. I ask what function games oriented toward male leisurely consumption, such as the billiards, the Playstation, and the flechettes serve, and investigate their efficacy in deterring men from spending time in other venues outside.
Paper short abstract:
In contemporary Portugal various religious traditions and heritages co-exist. This paper discusses the adaptations and conflicts involved, and the existence (or non-existence) of interreligious dialogue within Portuguese society.
Paper long abstract:
Portuguese religious field changed immensely over the past 30 years, with the entrance into the EU and the flows of migrants. In a country with a strong Catholic tradition, this has important repercussions—we now have a religious variety that encompasses Islam, evangelicals, neo-shamans, neo-druids, pagans, Afro-Brazilians and many other religious groups. Attitudes of the Portuguese towards this religious variety differ. Albeit the existence of a Comission for Religious Equality, the Portuguese state tends to classify as religious heritage the Christian one, disregarding other ones. The most visible “bad” religious materiality is directly related to the Afro-Brazilian religions, as they are the ones leaving offerings for the orixás (deities) in public spaces. The Sintra region, close to Lisbon, is considered by all the mentioned new religious tendencies as a magical zone, full of special energies and powers. This area is classified by UNESCO as World heritage, a “Cultural landscape area”, packed with tourists that visit the monumental sites but also explore the magic of the Sintra hills and the Cabo da Roca (the westmost point of Europe). Offers made to the diverse spiritual entities are often placed at the entrances of the Sintra natural park, causing disturbances, shocking the more conservative Portuguese Catholics, but also tourists, and triggering complaints to the national guard in charge of such ecological sanctuaries. Based on field work carried out in Portugal, this paper will discuss the existence (or non-existence) of interreligious dialogue within Portuguese civil society, as well as the adaptations and conflicts involved.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how undocumented migrants in the United States derived hopefulness and enacted potentiality through Evangelical faith. Drawn from fieldwork conducted among Brazilian migrants living in Washington D.C., I consider how Evangelical identity and belonging mitigated migrant distress.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how undocumented migrants in the United States derived hopefulness and enacted potentiality through Evangelical faith. Drawn from extensive fieldwork conducted among Brazilian migrants living in Greater Washington D.C., I consider how Evangelical identity and forms of belonging mitigated migrant distress, and enabled migrants to imagine lives beyond suffering, constraint, and marginalization. The paper progresses in two parts. First, I discuss one of the most common expressions of constraint migrants articulated—that of "feeling stuck," articulated in English for emphasis. Alluding to exploitative work, family separation, and living undocumented in the U.S., migrants expressed feeling immobile and paralyzed. This corporeal sensation reflected the "stuckness" of their status as undocumented persons. The second part of the paper describes how evangelical faith and belonging dramatically transformed this experience by imbuing migrants with an individual and collective feeling of "potentiality," the ability to impact their environment by partnering with God. In theorizing the "potentiality" and "mobility" inherent in migrant evangelical practice, I invoke Cheryl Mattingly's concept of "radical hope," in which the chronically ill engage in "creating...lives worth living even in the midst of suffering, even with no happy ending in sight" (2010:6). Viewing themselves as partnered with God, and embedded in a dense brotherhood of Christ, migrants no longer "felt stuck," but rather in control of their circumstances. Beyond a simple feeling, their novel religious orientation enabled them to better challenge, and move, increasingly punitive anti-migrant policies and rhetoric in the United States.