"It's all a Giant Web" : syncretism, agency and (re)connection in a contemporary Pagan community

Les anthropologues ont examiné le syncrétisme religieux, soit l’incorporation d’éléments de sources diverses, au sein des religions du monde depuis plusieurs décennies. Cependant, très peu d’intérêt a été accordé au paganisme contemporain, un Nouveau Mouvement Religieux hautement syncrétique. À travers les récits de plusieurs païens/nes contemporain/es à Montréal, j’examine comment et pourquoi les pratiquants sont inspiré/es à faire le choix d’incorporer divers éléments provenant de sources religieuses et non religieuses. Le recours à des sources différentes reflète l’effort de créer une expérience religieuse plus profonde et personnelle. La créativité impliquée dans la construction d’une pratique spirituelle et d’un système de croyance personnels est souvent conduite par un désir de (re)connexion, que ce soit à la terre, aux ancêtres, ou bien à une communauté. Les acteurs acquièrent un sentiment accru d’agentivité dans ce processus. Ma participation dans cette communauté a influencé mes expériences de recherche; j’examine également ma position en tant qu’anthropologue chez soi.

Psychology and psychoanalysis in Brazil - From cultural syncretism to the collapse of liberal individualism

This paper focuses first on cultural syncretism, used to characterize Brazilian culture. The other aspect of this socially and racially blended culture is the unfinished assimilation of liberalism in politics and the economy, which defines Brazilian society. The increased assimilation and dissemination of psychology may be linked with these in cultural and social aspects. During the military period (1964-1974) the major expansion in university-level studies in psychology contributed ideologically to the dissemination of psychology throughout Brazilian society. This introduced a type of psychology that was related primarily to clinical practice and developed in opposition to social work practice. This paper examines the ideological bases for this conflict between clinical and social work. Criteria for understanding the cultural dissemination of psychoanalysis are then discussed, and it is argued that cultural incorporation of psychoanalysis involves the development of discourse complexes to reflect particular aspects of Brazilian society. The criteria (a non-totalitarian society and the displacement of a magical and religious interpretation of mental disturbance by psychiatric interpretation) are evaluated in relation to the peculiarities of Brazilian syncretism. The paper argues that cultural syncretism and the incomplete assimilation of liberal ideology must be included as criteria in understanding the particular cultural incorporation of psychoanalysis in Brazil.

O sincretismo de culturas sob a ótica da arquitetura vernácula do imigrante japonês na cidade de Registro, São Paulo

O presente artigo aborda os métodos construtivos empregados pelos imigrantes japoneses que vieram, em 1918, para a cidade de Registro, na região do Vale do Ribeira do Iguape, no estado de São Paulo. A vinda dessa nova frente de imigração foi incentivada pelo Governo do Estado, com o propósito de promover o processo de colonização, bem como de estimular o desenvolvimento econômico do Vale do Ribeira do Iguape por meio da expansão da cultura do café para a região. As características dessa frente de imigração são muito diferenciadas em relação às demais, tendo em vista que os que dela faziam parte chegaram ao Brasil como proprietários de terras e com apoio financeiro e logístico oferecido por uma empresa particular japonesa, responsável por gerenciar o empreendimento. Esses imigrantes, portanto, contaram com auxílio de uma complexa infra-estrutura, cujo objetivo era viabilizar a sua missão de desenvolvimento da região. Mesmo tendo essa particularidade lhes proporcionado a liberdade de recriar sua cultura em solo brasileiro, a realidade do novo habitat forçou-os a reinterpretar seus hábitos culturais ante as novas circunstâncias físicas, econômicas e sociais encontradas. A fim de entender esse processo de adaptação, foi realizado um estudo dos métodos construtivos empregados em suas edificações, baseado nos conhecimentos desses imigrantes sobre sua arquitetura tradicional. Essa análise permitiu examinar o longo processo de sincretismo entre a cultura oriental e o conhecimento construtivo vernáculo dos habitantes do Vale do Ribeira do Iguape.

Angola, jeje e ketu : memórias e identidades em casas e nações de candomblé na Região Metropolitana da Grande Vitória (ES)

Angola, jeje e ketu: Memórias e identidades em casas e nações de candomblé na Região Metropolitana da Grande Vitória (ES), que é o tema desta dissertação, requer adentrar em análises de categorias nativas do povo de santo, e, em seguida, passar a questões teóricas sobre esses temas. Na cidade de Serra encontram-se as quatro casas de santo onde a pesquisa de campo foi realizada com três iyalorixás e um babalorixá, que dividem suas memórias e experiências religiosas compondo um exercício teórico sobre a história e a formação do candomblé no Espírito Santo. Nesse estado, que não é referência dessa religião, a mesma encontra-se em ascensão. A preocupação dos integrantes das comunidades de terreiros é transformar parte das tradições orais em produção escrita. Tendo em vista os processos políticos de reconhecimento legal da diversidade cultural, o debate se deu em torno de hibridização e múltiplas formas de identidade. O universo encantador e mágico do candomblé é composto pelos toques dos atabaques, danças rituais e fé em forças da natureza. Os “filhos da diáspora africana” trazidos para o Brasil eram de várias regiões da África, o que nos permite entender a diversidade cultural que marca esses grupos. Em função do sincretismo entre as próprias religiões de matriz africana e delas com o catolicismo e as doutrinas espiritualistas, essas religiões encontram-se de norte a sul do país. Este encontro de crenças e rituais é tão evidente que já não dizemos religiões “africanas” e sim religiões “afro-brasileiras”. O candomblé, desde o seu surgimento, vem sendo criado e recriado pela transmissão de suas tradições e ritos. A tradição oral nas comunidades de terreiro é um dos elementos demarcadores da construção da sua identidade, a partir de uma organização interna e do aprendizado hierarquicamente transmitido pelos depositários do saber, seguindo uma ordem de senioridade de iniciação, os antigos são detentores dos saberes e segredos. Por ser uma religião iniciática, o aprendizado ocorre permanentemente, em especial o da língua ritual, onde o exercício e o contato levam a transmissão cultural. O povo de santo reconstrói uma ligação com uma comunidade imaginada que remonta a África e desenvolve relações de parentesco ficcional entre os membros das comunidades de terreiro e forma uma família de santo e de axé.

Eastwards / westwards: which direction for gender studies in the 21st century?

Eastwards / Westwards: Which Direction for Gender Studies in the XXIst Century? is a collection of essays which focus on themes and methods that characterize current research into gender in Asian countries in general. In this collection, ideas derived from Gender Studies elsewhere in the world have been subjected to scrutiny for their utility in helping to describe and understand regional phenomena. But the concepts of Local and Global – with their discoursive productions – have not functioned as a binary opposition: localism and globalism are mutually constitutive and researchers have interrogated those spaces of interaction between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, bearing in mind their own embeddedness in social and cultural structures and their own historical memory. Contributors to this collection provided a critical transnational perspective on some of the complex effects of the dynamics of cultural globalization, by exploring the relation between gender and development, language, historiography, education and culture. We have also given attention to the ideological and rhetorical processes through which gender identity is constructed, by comparing textual grids and patterns of expectation. Likewise, we have discussed the role of ethnography, anthropology, historiography, sociology, fiction, popular culture and colonial and post-colonial sources in (re)inventing old/new male/female identities, their conversion into concepts and circulation through time and space. This multicultural and trans-disciplinary selection of essays is totally written in English, fully edited and revised, therefore, it has a good potential for an immediate international circulation. This project may trace new paths and issues for discussion on what concerns the life, practices and narratives by and about women in Asia, as well as elsewhere in the present day global experience. Academic readership: Researchers, scholars, educators, graduate and post-graduate students, doctoral students and general non-fiction readers, with a special interest in Gender Studies, Asia, Colonial and Post-Colonial Literature, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, History, Historiography, Politics, Race, Feminism, Language, Linguistics, Power, Political and Feminist Agendas, Popular Culture, Education, Women’s Writing, Religion, Multiculturalism, Globalisation, Migration. Chapter summary: 1. “Social Gender Stereotypes and their Implication in Hindi”, Anjali Pande, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. This essay looks at the subtle ways in which gender identities are constructed and reinforced in India through social norms of language use. Language itself becomes a medium for perpetuating gender stereotypes, forcing its speakers to confirm to socially defined gender roles. Using examples from a classroom discussion about a film, this essay will highlight the underlying rigid male-female stereotypes in Indian society with their more obvious expressions in language. For the urban woman in India globalisation meant increased economic equality and exposure to changed lifestyles. On an individual level it also meant redefining gender relations and changing the hierarchy in man-­woman relationships. With the economic independence there is a heightened sense of liberation in all spheres of social life, a confidence to fuzz the rigid boundaries of gender roles. With the new films and media celebrating this liberated woman, who is ready to assert her sexual needs, who is ready to explode those long held notions of morality, one would expect that the changes are not just superficial. But as it soon became obvious in the course of a classroom discussion about relationships and stereotypes related to age, the surface changes can not become part of the common vocabulary, for the obvious reason that there is still a vast gap between the screen image of this new woman and the ground reality. Social considerations define the limits of this assertiveness of women, whereas men are happy to be liberal within the larger frame of social sanctions. The educated urban woman in India speaks in favour of change and the educated urban male supports her, but one just needs to scratch the surface to see the time tested formulae of gender roles firmly in place. The way the urban woman happily balances this emerging promise of independence with her gendered social identity, makes it necessary to rethink some aspects of looking at gender in a gradually changing, traditional society like India. 2. “The Linguistic Dimension of Gender Equality”, Alissa Tolstokorova, Kiev Centre for Gender Information and Education, Ukraine. The subject-matter of this essay is gender justice in language which, as I argue, may be achieved through the development of a gender-related approach to linguistic human rights. The last decades of the 20th century, globally marked by a “gender shift” in attitudes to language policy, gave impetus to the social movement for promoting linguistic gender equality. It was initiated in Western Europe and nowadays is moving eastwards, as ideas of gender democracy progress into developing countries. But, while in western societies gender discrimination through language, or linguistic sexism, was an issue of concern for over three decades, in developing countries efforts to promote gender justice in language are only in their infancy. My argument is that to promote gender justice in language internationally it is necessary to acknowledge the rights of women and men to equal representation of their gender in language and speech and, therefore, raise a question of linguistic rights of the sexes. My understanding is that the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights in 1996 provided this opportunity to address the problem of gender justice in language as a human rights issue, specifically as a gender dimension of linguistic human rights. 3. “The Rebirth of an Old Language: Issues of Gender Equality in Kazakhstan”, Maria Helena Guimarães, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. The existing language situation in Kazakhstan, while peaceful, is not without some tension. We propose to analyze here some questions we consider relevant in the frame of cultural globalization and gender equality, such as: free from Russian imperialism, could Kazakhstan become an easy prey of Turkey’s “imperialist dream”? Could these traditionally Muslim people be soon facing the end of religious tolerance and gender equality, becoming this new old language an easy instrument for the infiltration in the country of fundamentalism (it has already crossed the boarders of Uzbekistan), leading to a gradual deterioration of its rich multicultural relations? The present structure of the language is still very fragile: there are three main dialects and many academics defend the re-introduction of the Latin alphabet, thus enlarging the possibility of cultural “contamination” by making the transmission of fundamentalist ideas still easier through neighbour countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (their languages belong to the same sub-group of Common Turkic), where the Latin alphabet is already in use, and where the ground for such ideas shown itself very fruitful. 4. “Construction of Womanhood in the Bengali Language of Bangladesh”, Raasheed Mahmood; University of New South Wales, Sydney. The present essay attempts to explore the role of gender-based language differences and of certain markers that reveal the status accorded to women in Bangladesh. Discrimination against women, in its various forms, is endemic in communities and countries around the world, cutting across class, race, age, and religious and national boundaries. One cannot understand the problems of gender discrimination solely by referring to the relationship of power or authority between men and women. Rather one needs to consider the problem by relating it to the specific social formation in which the image of masculinity and femininity is constructed and reconstructed. Following such line of reasoning this essay will examine the nature of gender bias in the Bengali language of Bangladesh, holding the conviction that as a product of social reality language reflects the socio-cultural behaviour of the community who speaks it. This essay will also attempt to shed some light on the processes through which gender based language differences produce actual consequences for women, who become exposed to low self-esteem, depression and systematic exclusion from public discourse. 5. “Marriage in China as an expression of a changing society”, Elisabetta Rosado David, University of Porto, Portugal, and Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia, Italy. In 29 April 2001, the new Marriage Law was promulgated in China. The first law on marriage was proclaimed in 1950 with the objective of freeing women from the feudal matrimonial system. With the second law, in 1981, values and conditions that had been distorted by the Cultural Revolution were recovered. Twenty years later, a new reform was started, intending to update marriage in the view of the social and cultural changes that occurred with Deng Xiaoping’s “open policy”. But the legal reform is only the starting point for this case-study. The rituals that are followed in the wedding ceremony are often hard to understand and very difficult to standardize, especially because China is a vast country, densely populated and characterized by several ethnic minorities. Two key words emerge from this issue: syncretism and continuity. On this basis, we can understand tradition in a better way, and analyse whether or not marriage, as every social manifestation, has evolved in harmony with Chinese culture. 6. “The Other Woman in the Portuguese Colonial Empire: The Case of Portuguese India”, Maria de Deus Manso, University of Évora, Portugal. This essay researches the social, cultural and symbolic history of local women in the Portuguese Indian colonial enclaves. The normative Portuguese overseas history has not paid any attention to the “indigenous” female populations in colonial Portuguese territories, albeit the large social importance of these social segments largely used in matrimonial and even catholic missionary strategies. The first attempt to open fresh windows in the history of this new field was the publication of Charles Boxer’s referential study about Women in lberian Overseas Expansion, edited in Portugal only after the Revolution of 1975. After this research we can only quote some other fragmentary efforts. In fact, research about the social, cultural, religious, political and symbolic situation of women in the Portuguese colonial territories, from the XVI to the XX century, is still a minor historiographic field. In this essay we discuss this problem and we study colonial representations of women in the Portuguese Indian enclaves, mainly in the territory of Goa, using case studies methodologies. 7. “Heading East this Time: Critical Readings on Gender in Southeast Asia”, Clara Sarmento, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Portugal. This essay intends to discuss some critical readings of fictional and theoretical texts on gender condition in Southeast Asian countries. Nowadays, many texts about women in Southeast Asia apply concepts of power in unusual areas. Traditional forms of gender hegemony have been replaced by other powerful, if somewhat more covert, forms. We will discuss some universal values concerning conventional female roles as well as the strategies used to recognize women in political fields traditionally characterized by male dominance. Female empowerment will mean different things at different times in history, as a result of culture, local geography and individual circumstances. Empowerment needs to be perceived as an individual attitude, but it also has to be facilitated at the macro­level by society and the State. Gender is very much at the heart of all these dynamics, strongly related to specificities of historical, cultural, ethnic and class situatedness, requiring an interdisciplinary transnational approach.

Uma leitura sobre a medicina baseada na evidência a partir de Ludwik Fleck: entre incomensurabilidades e sincretismos

Tendo como base o contributo inovador de Fleck para o estudo do conhecimento médico, procura-se neste artigo explorar a ideia da incomensurabilidade entre estilos de pensamento. O objetivo principal é o de discutir em que medida as recentes reconfigurações suscitadas pela consolidação da Medicina Baseada na Evidência se têm traduzido na reformulação dos fundamentos da prática clínica. A partir da ilustração exploratória da especialidade de Medicina Geral e Familiar, sustenta-se que o contexto da praxis clínica implica articulações compósitas entre diferentes estilos de pensamento. Daí resulta que em lugar do conceito de incomensurabilidade, poderá ser mais adequado aprofundar as potencialidades da ideia de sincretismo epistemológico.

Food traditions and landscape histories of the Indian Ocean World : theoretical and methodological reflections

Environmental histories of plant exchanges have largely centred on their eco- nomic importance in international trade and on their ecological and social impacts in the places where they were introduced. Yet few studies have at- tempted to examine how plants brought from elsewhere become incorporated over time into the regional cultures of material life and agricultural landscapes. This essay considers the theoretical and methodological problems in inves- tigating the environmental history, diversity and distribution of food plants transferred across the Indian Ocean over several millennia. It brings together concepts of creolisation, syncretism, and hybridity to outline a framework for understanding how biotic exchanges and diffusions have been translated into regional landscape histories through food traditions, ritual practices and articu- lation of cultural identity. We use the banana plant - which underwent early domestication across New Guinea, South-east Asia and peninsular India and reached East Africa roughly two thousand years ago - as an example for il- lustrating the diverse patterns of incorporation into the cultural symbolism, material life and regional landscapes of the Indian Ocean World. We show that this cultural evolutionary approach allows new historical insights to emerge and enriches ongoing debates regarding the antiquity of the plant's diffusion from South-east Asia to Africa.

Les relations entre catholiques et hindous chez les Tamouls sri lankais à Montréal et la notion de syncrétisme : l’exemple des pèlerinages et de la dévotion mariale

Dans cette étude, l’auteure décrit les relations entre des catholiques et des hindous chez les Tamouls originaires du Sri Lanka qui ont immigré à Montréal. Ce faisant, elle accentuera son étude sur les perspectives des catholiques tamouls, et ce particulièrement au cours de pèlerinages et à travers la dévotion mariale. Les relations entre catholiques et hindous sont ainsi codifiées par des normes sociales et culturelles. De plus, l’auteure démontre que la migration, de même que la société d’accueil, influence les interactions entre ces deux groupes. Dans ce contexte, la notion de syncrétisme devient un concept secondaire qui est principalement étudié en lien avec les normes sociales tamoules. Finalement, l’auteure démontre, à travers les pèlerinages et la dévotion mariale, que les catholiques entretiennent des rapports contradictoires avec les hindous.

Le Corrector sive Medicus de Burchard de Worms (1000-1025) : présentation, traduction et commentaire ethno-historique

Le Corrector sive Medicus est un pénitentiel rédigé par Burchard, évêque de Worms (1000-1025). Il s’agit d’un manuel destiné à guider les confesseurs lors de l’administration du sacrement de pénitence. Intégré dans le Decretum, l’œuvre majeure de Burchard, il compte parmis les pénitentiels les plus illustres. Il contient notamment un questionnaire très élaboré sur les péchés commis par les fidèles. Les 194 questions du Corrector sive Medicus constituent l’objet d’étude de ce mémoire. Entre le VIIe et le XIIe siècle, les pénitentiels forment une longue tradition littéraire où les textes se répètent constamment. Le questionnaire du Corrector sive Medicus se distingue du fait qu’il est rédigé en grande partie par Burchard lui-même. Les détails précis sur les survivances païennes et la religion populaire que l’évêque introduit dans son pénitentiel permettent, comme aucune autre source de la période, une analyse ethno-historique de la culture germanique. La première partie du mémoire est consacrée à la présentation du Corrector sive Medicus : j’y décris d’abord le contexte historique et biographique de l’œuvre, puis discute d’une herméneutique littéraire, pour enfin proposer une synthèse diachronique des traditions germaniques. La deuxième partie offre, pour la première fois en français, la traduction intégrale du questionnaire de Burchard, accompagnée de commentaires sur différents sujets ou problèmes soulevés par le texte, notamment ceux qui concernent la culture germanique. Finalement sont placés en annexe quelques documents qui témoignent, tout comme le Corrector sive Medicus, d’un syncrétisme religieux profondément enraciné dans les mœurs des Germains.

Dialogue critique entre acteurs thérapeutiques : étude de la dynamique relationnelle chamanique/pentecôtiste au Guatemala

Depuis la seconde moitié du 19e siècle, le paysage religieux guatémaltèque a subi d’importantes transformations. L’apparition et l’expansion phénoménale de nouveaux mouvements protestants ont entrainé une réorganisation progressive de l’espace religieux jusqu’alors homogène et déclenché l’affrontement idéologique de différents systèmes de croyances. Dans cette coexistence parfois tumultueuse, le chamanisme doit, à sa façon, lutter pour conserver une place de choix et éviter d’être relégué au passé. Par l’analyse de l’activité thérapeutique, ce mémoire vise la compréhension de la dynamique relationnelle chamanique/pentecôtiste. Le portrait du contexte religieux et l’historique des développements servent tout d’abord de base à l’étude des perceptions mutuelles entre chamanes, pasteurs et convertis. Cette dernière permet non seulement d’apporter un élément nouveau en se penchant sur la vision qu’ont développée curanderos et brujos à l’égard du pasteur pentecôtiste au sein du pluralisme médico-religieux guatémaltèque, mais permet également l’approfondissement et la compréhension de la perception dégradante et archaïsante de cette mouvance évangélique à l’égard des croyances ancestrales. Ce croisement des regards et l’observation des rituels curatifs respectifs m’amènent ainsi à considérer de près les prolongements entre ces deux univers à priori distincts alors que certaines continuations sur le plan thérapeutique sont perceptibles. L’enquête de terrain révèle finalement qu’en parallèle à ces opinions et concordances, des impacts négatifs sont engendrés sur les pratiques chamaniques, amenant les détenteurs du savoir traditionnel à opérer des modifications apparentes sur le plan de leurs propres pratiques rituelles et croyances en fonction du système de valeurs pentecôtiste.

Identidades compostas por múltiplas pertenças religiosas : um estudo de caso na Igreja Batista do Pinheiro

A partir de um estudo de caso entre os membros e congregados da Igreja Batista do Pinheiro, a presente pesquisa problematiza questões relacionadas à experiência da vivência simultânea de diversas crenças e práticas oriundas de diferentes tradições dentro de uma mesma identidade religiosa. Abordamos questões como a construção sócio-cultural das identidades; a imbricação da alteridade na formação do Si Mesmo; e a relação entre contemporaneidade, hibridismo cultural e sincretismo religioso. Considerando tais discussões, abordaremos o fenômeno das identidades religiosas inclusivas, a partir de uma perspectiva sociológica e da Ciência das Religiões, privilegiando, algumas teorias acerca do papel da religião na contemporaneidade, além e das possíveis causas e efeitos dessa orientação sincrética que vem crescentemente marcando o terreno das identidades religiosas. Trata-se de um esforço no sentido de atentar às vozes de alguns teóricos contemporâneos sobre o tema das identidades plurais, articulando-as aos dados obtidos em pesquisa de campo, a fim de entender como os sujeitos que vivenciam esse fenômeno articulam suas diferentes e às vezes divergentes identificações dentro de sua inclusiva identidade religiosa, e com o meio onde se inserem.

A laicidade do estado brasileiro e os feriados nacionais

A laicidade do Estado brasileiro, presente desde a primeira Constituição republicana, sofreu variações em sua práxis ao longo da história. A relação entre Igreja e Estado nunca foi de total separação no Brasil e um dos fatores responsáveis por isso é a religiosidade popular, com um sincretismo pouco visto em outras nações do mundo. Diante disso e da tradição cristã católica, imiscuída no povo brasileiro desde os primórdios de sua colonização, fizeram com que feriados de cunho religioso permanecessem no calendário oficial do país, a despeito de ser um Estado laico. As razões que levaram a isso só podem ser compreendidas com uma análise da evolução do conceito de laicidade nos textos constitucionais do Brasil independente e da influência dos costumes no ordenamento jurídico pátrio.

Implicit learning and imperceptible influence: Syncretic literacy of multilingual Chinese children.

This article reports on an ethnographic study involving the literacy practices of two multilingual Chinese children from two similar yet different cultural and linguistic contexts: Montreal and Singapore. Using syncretism as a theoretical tool, this inquiry examines how family environment and support facilitate children’s process of becoming literate in multiple languages. Informed by sociocultural theory, the inquiry looks in particular at the role of grandparents in the syncretic literacy practices of children. Through comparative analysis, the study reveals similarities and differences that, when considered together, contribute to our understanding of multilingual children’s creative forms of learning with regard to their rich literacy resources in multiple languages, the imperceptible influences of mediators, various learning styles and syncretic literacy practices.