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Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
As igrejas Zione, surgidas na África do Sul no princípio do século XX, representam na
actualidade um movimento difundido de forma capilar nos bairros urbanos e nas aldeias
do Sul de Moçambique. Os factores que alimentam o crescimento destas igrejas em
Maputo são múltiplos e não podem ser desligados uns dos outros. O facto de serem
movimentos populares, pouco institucionalizados, permite-lhes uma elasticidade
constante que os faz proliferar nos bairros, sobrepondo-se às estruturas familiares,
dando vida a pequenos espaços de poder que na dispersão do contexto urbano são mais
escassos. Dependendo da visão particular da sua liderança e dos seus profetas, estas
igrejas improvisam e reformulam constantemente práticas de cura, segundo os
entendimentos dos próprios pacientes, seguindo uma lógica bastante definida. As igrejas
Zione não são só lugares de criação de sentido, mas também veículos de uma certa visão
local sobre os princípios que regulam as relações entre os indivíduos e entre estes e os
defuntos. O é que as pessoas parecem procurar nas igrejas Zione não é uma resistência a
um sistema dominante, mas antes a capacidade de fazer parte dele e de ter acesso a um
conjunto de possibilidades, entre as quais a instrução e o bem-estar económico e
familiar, que só parecem ser concretizáveis através da reformulação dos espíritos que
continuam a ser entidades indissociáveis na constituição da pessoa. Assim, a cura Zione
reformula e reescreve a história através de dicotomias que se tornaram locais, como
tradição/modernidade, civilização/não civilização e rezar/não rezar, ao mesmo tempo
que resgata o poder dos antepassados e dos espíritos de cura convertendo-os ao
cristianismo. Assim as lógicas locais que estruturam as relações entre vivos, e entre
vivos e mortos, reconfiguram-se segundo esquemas onde o cristianismo é marcado
como superior, “civilizado” e universal, e desta forma como a religião mais legítima.
The Zionist churches that emerged in South Africa in the early twentieth Century, represent today a highly widespread movement in urban and rural settings of Southern Mozambique. The factors contributing to the growth of these churches are multiple and intertwined.The fact that they are popular and un-institutionalized movements make them flexible micro spaces of power (for both men and women) likely to proliferate in local neighbourhoods, where they overlap with family structures. Depending on the particular vision of their leadership and their prophets, these churches constantly improvise and reshape healing practices, according to the patients' own understandings and following a well-defined logic. The Zionist churches are not only places where new meanings are created, but also vehicles of a certain local view on the principles governing relations among individuals and between them and the dead. What people seem to seek in the Zionist offer is not resistance to a dominant system, but rather the ability to be part of it and to have access to a range of possibilities, including education, economic well-being and a stable family. And all this is accessible only through the reformulation of spirits that remain inseparable entities in the constitution of the person. Thus, Zionist healing reshapes and rewrites history inscribing dichotomies that, although borrowed from elsewhere, are now embedded in local cultural logics, such as tradition vs. modernity, civilization vs. non-civilization, or praying vs. not praying. At the same time, they rescue the ancestors’ and traditional healing spirits’ power, converting them to Christianity. These local logics structure the relationships among the living and between the living and the dead, and reconfigure these relationships according to schemes in which Christianity is marked as “superior,” “civilized” and “universal,” which makes it,for many, a more appealing religion.
The Zionist churches that emerged in South Africa in the early twentieth Century, represent today a highly widespread movement in urban and rural settings of Southern Mozambique. The factors contributing to the growth of these churches are multiple and intertwined.The fact that they are popular and un-institutionalized movements make them flexible micro spaces of power (for both men and women) likely to proliferate in local neighbourhoods, where they overlap with family structures. Depending on the particular vision of their leadership and their prophets, these churches constantly improvise and reshape healing practices, according to the patients' own understandings and following a well-defined logic. The Zionist churches are not only places where new meanings are created, but also vehicles of a certain local view on the principles governing relations among individuals and between them and the dead. What people seem to seek in the Zionist offer is not resistance to a dominant system, but rather the ability to be part of it and to have access to a range of possibilities, including education, economic well-being and a stable family. And all this is accessible only through the reformulation of spirits that remain inseparable entities in the constitution of the person. Thus, Zionist healing reshapes and rewrites history inscribing dichotomies that, although borrowed from elsewhere, are now embedded in local cultural logics, such as tradition vs. modernity, civilization vs. non-civilization, or praying vs. not praying. At the same time, they rescue the ancestors’ and traditional healing spirits’ power, converting them to Christianity. These local logics structure the relationships among the living and between the living and the dead, and reconfigure these relationships according to schemes in which Christianity is marked as “superior,” “civilized” and “universal,” which makes it,for many, a more appealing religion.
Description
Tese de doutoramento, Antropologia (Antropologia da Religião e do Simbólico), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, 2013
Keywords
Teses de doutoramento - 2013