3 papers in the library · publishing 2019-2024
Religie & Samenleving December 18, 2024 Mattijs van de Port
‘An increasing number of priests from candomblé – an Afro-Brazilian spirit possession cult – publicly demand that their creed is recognized as a full-fledged ‘religion’. In this article I discuss how this demand is part of a larger political project whereby candomblé priests seek to assert their voice in the public sphere of Salvador, Bahia, thus to counter the all out appropriation of...
The Imposter as Social Theory May 26, 2021 Mattijs van de Port
In the Afro-Brazilian candomblé religion, faking spirit-possession is a well documented phenomenon. The practice is associated with young male homosexuals, and has often been understood as a kind of gender bending: dressed in the attire of female spirits, the imposters dance in front of an appreciative audience. This chapter seeks to complicate the analysis of the phenomenon by highlighting the...
Journal of Anthropological Films March 1, 2019 Mattijs van de Port
What is it that you film when you film a spirit? Shot in Bahia (Brazil), The Possibility of Spirits is an essay film that keeps the baffling mystery of spirit possession center stage. In a poetic assemblage of images and words, it offers an alternative for the kind of documentary that either exoticizes spirit possession in spectacular imagery, or extinguishes the wonder of the phenomenon in...