The Discourse about ‘Africa’ in Religious Communities in Brazil: How Africa Becomes the Ultimate Source of Authenticity in Afro-Brazilian Religions

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-119
Author(s):  
Pedro Crepaldi Carlessi

This contribution aims to share some experiences and methodological considerations that arose during an ethnobotanical research project with an Afro-Brazilian religious community in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. By presenting ontological features of plants used in religious practices, and the ways relations are created within this religious cosmology, this work opens a discussion about the political commitments of doing contemporary ethnobotanical science. When the ways of being and living in communities considered “traditional”—here referring to Afro-Brazilian religious communities, and specifically to the Umbanda Afro-Brazilian religion—are treated as equally valid, questions arise about the reaches of our own scientific practices, creating possibilities to construct practices and policies that preserve these communities’ vitality in the face of the overwhelming imposition of colonialism. In this sense, ethnobotanical research is at an analytical crossroads that can give the field an advantage over the political paralysis of the sciences and over the clandestine politicization of science as the spokesperson for a singular nature. These considerations lead to self-reflection on scientific expertise and democratic ways of producing knowledge about plants in plural cultural contexts.


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 640
Author(s):  
Danielle N. Boaz

Since at least 2005, drug traffickers in the cities and favelas of the state of Rio de Janeiro have been carrying out systematic and violent assaults on Afro-Brazilian religious communities. Motivated by their conversion to sects of Evangelical Christianity that regard Afro-Brazilian religions as devil worship, the traffickers have forcibly expelled devotees of these faiths from their homes and temples, destroyed shrines and places of worship, and threatened to kill priests if they continue to practice their religion. Scholars have often described this religious landscape as a “conflict” and a “spiritual war.” However, I argue that Evangelized drug traffickers and Afro-Brazilian religions are not engaged in a two-sided struggle; rather, the former is unilaterally committing gross violations of the latter’s human rights, which contravene international norms prohibiting crimes against humanity and genocide.


1997 ◽  
pp. 8-12
Author(s):  
Valentyna Bodak

Society is a person in its social relations. If the term "society" is used to determine reality as a system of interconnections and relationships between people, then its social system appears as an entity in which human societies are diverse in character and social role. Social life is expressed in the grouping of members of society on the basis of certain objectively predetermined types of relations between them. The integrity and unity of religious communities, their qualitative specificity determines the content of the doctrine and cult, on which they grow.


Author(s):  
Aji Sulistyo

Television advertisement is an effective medium that aims to market a product or service, because it combines audio and visuals. therefore television advertisement can effectively influence the audience to buy the product or service. Advertisement nowadays does not only convey promotional messages, but can also be a medium for delivering social messages. That is one form of the function of the media, which is to educate the public. The research entitled Representation of Morality in the Teh Botol Sosro Advertisement "Semeja Bersaudara" version analyzed the morality value in a television advertisement from ready-to-drink tea producers, Teh Botol Sosro entitled "Semeja Bersaudara" which began airing in early 2019. In this study researchers used Charles Sanders Peirce's Semiotics theory with triangular meaning analysis tools in the form of Signs, Objects and Interpretations. In addition, researchers also use representation theory from Stuart Hall in interpreting messages in advertisements. The results of this study found that the "Semeja Bersaudara" version of Teh Botol Sosro advertisement represented a message in the form of morality. There are nine values of morality that can be taken in this advertisement including, friendly attitude, sharing, empathy, help, not prejudice, no discrimination, harmony, tolerance between religious communities and cross-cultural tolerance. The message conveyed in this advertisement is how the general public can understand how every human action in social life has moral values, so that the public can understand and apply moral values in order to live a better life.


This volume is an interdisciplinary assessment of the relationship between religion and the FBI. We recount the history of the FBI’s engagement with multiple religious communities and with aspects of public or “civic” religion such as morality and respectability. The book presents new research to explain roughly the history of the FBI’s interaction with religion over approximately one century, from the pre-Hoover period to the post-9/11 era. Along the way, the book explores vexed issues that go beyond the particulars of the FBI’s history—the juxtaposition of “religion” and “cult,” the ways in which race can shape the public’s perceptions of religion (and vica versa), the challenges of mediating between a religious orientation and a secular one, and the role and limits of academic scholarship as a way of addressing the differing worldviews of the FBI and some of the religious communities it encounters.


2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy

The Occupy movement was an unprecedented social formation that spread to approximate 82 countries around the globe in the fall of 2011 via social media through the use of myths, symbols and rituals that were performed in public space and quickly drew widespread mainstream attention. In this paper I argue that the movement offers a unique instance of how discourse functions in the construction of society and I show how the shared discourses of Occupy were taken-up and shaped in relation to the political opportunity structures and interests of those involved based on my own fieldwork at Occupy Winnipeg. I also argue that the Occupy movement provides an example of how we might substantively attempt to classify “religion” by looking at how it embodied certain metaphysical claims while contrasting it with the beliefs and practices of more conventionally defined “religious” communities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 183-194
Author(s):  
Edmund Kee-Fook Chia

The phenomenon of religious pluralism is a fact that needs no further discussion. How society and institutions are negotiating its impact, however, certainly needs further scrutiny. Schreiter's call for the construction of local theologies invites us to explore how the preaching of the Gospel has to adapt to the realities of new situations. The present article focuses on Catholic educational institutions and how they are dealing with the multi-cultural and multi-religious communities that are now found not only outside of the schools and universities but also within them as well. Its concern is with how the identity and mission of these Catholic institutions are expressed and measured in the new contexts, taking seriously the teachings of the Church on the role they play in its evangelizing mission.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document