Occupying New Spaces: the “Digital Turn” of Afro-Brazilian Religions During the Covid-19 Outbreak

Abstract

This paper intends to analyze how Afro-Brazilian religious minorities (like Candomblé and Umbanda) are responding to the Covid-19 crisis in Brazil both at a religious and political level. Drawing a comparison between the reactions of Neo-Pentecostal churches and Afro-Brazilian religions, we will describe how the pandemic outbreak and the social distancing measures allowed Afroreligious practitioners to occupy new online spaces. In doing so, these religions found new modalities of practising rituals and transmitting sacred knowledge in the digital world. Despite the fundamental importance of bodily engagement in these religious expressions, Candomblé and Umbanda practitioners are increasing their presence online through producing different types of pedagogical, educational and ritual contents. While on the one hand, this new content aims at promoting social distancing and sanitary precautionary measures, on the other hand, it involves a restructuring of the dynamics of legitimation and power that are present in Afro-religious social structures. We will analyze these changing dynamics as consequences of the "crisis of the body" that resulted from the lockdown measures.

Covid-19 and the South African Pentecostal Landscape: Historic Shift from Offline Liturgical Practice to Online Platforms

“…This is supported by pastor 2 who opined that their church invested a lot of resources in purchasing Zoom licenses and required equipment to set up live church services (Telephone interview: Pastor 2, June 2020). This is not a new finding but rather confirms a study conducted by Capponi and Araújo (2020) in Brazil. In their analysis of the digital turn, the authors concluded that Neo-Pentecostal churches and Afro-Brazilian religions invested a lot of resources in digital divides as they occupy new online spaces amid the pandemic.…”

Practicing Religion during a Pandemic: On Religious Routines, Embodiment, and Performativity

“…By drawing attention to the importance of the body, emotions, and senses, we can challenge the cognitive framework in which religion is often placed (Meyer 2017). Capponi and Araújo (2020) aptly speak about the 'crisis of the body' in their study on the impact of the COVID-19 measures on Afro-Brazilian religions. Although this research takes place within another context and religious community, this 'crisis of the body' utterly applies to this Catholic faith community in Belgium as well.…”

“…Bringing together Mahmood's work on piety, performativity, and embodiment, and this 'crisis of the body' (Capponi and Araújo 2020), we might argue that the lack of modalities to fully engage the body in religious practices and the disrupted religious routines during the last year and a half indeed obstruct the formation of a religious self.…”

“…Digital religion and online religion have been widely examined in recent years; see for example the work of Campbell (2012), Campbell and Evolvi (2020), Evolvi (2021), Helland (2016), andHutchings (2017) for a more extensive overview. This last year and a half has led scholars to further explore religion and religious practices in pandemic times; see for instance Campbell (2020bCampbell ( , 2020c, Capponi and Araújo (2020), Dein et al (2020), Przywara et al (2021), Sabaté Gauxachs et al (2021), andVekemans (2021). As have many other religious groups and communities, the Catholic Church in Belgium had to make a swift and radical shift towards the online sphere in the spring of 2020 due to the federal measures in order to combat COVID-19.…”

Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions in Zambian Sermons about the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Some have managed to quickly publish booklets with experiences and advice on how to practically move services online (see, for example, Cooper and Till 2020;Campbell 2020). Anthropologically, this digital turn raises questions around the embodied and material dimension of religion (Capponi and Carneiro Araújo 2020;Bryson, Andres, and Davies 2020).2 For many other Christian authors, the pandemic is a time to reflect on what it means to be a church and argue for renewal (see, among others, Pillay 2020; Meylahn 2020; Parish 2020; Plüss 2020; Deguma et al 2020).…”