Jallo, Zainabu Ojo-Ago (19 April 2019). FROM CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY TO CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY: TRANSITIONS OF CANDOMBLÉ`S MATERIAL CULTURE (Unpublished). In: Techniques of Memory: Landscape, Iconoclasm, Medium and Power. University of California, Berkeley. April 17-19, 2019.
Candomblé, the Afro-Brazilian spirit possession religious cult,
comprises a rich array of sounds, myths, ritual performances and
aesthetics. The origins of the cult in Brazil date back to the 1500s
when a majority of the slaves traded from West Africa sought ways to
retain their indigenous religious practice. The first images
associated with Candomblé appeared through defamatory actions in the
early 20th century when some Brazilian newspapers published articles
about police raids, accompanied by names and images of those
prosecuted. Since then, the practice of Candomblé has witnessed a
shift from a closed sacred cult, fraught with discrimination and
persecution, to its incorporation into the construction of a new
national character in Brazil. Over the years, the Candomblé arena has
morphed into a cosmopolis; a corollary of vibrant and evolving visual
representations. Investigations into the cult have emerged from
academic fields such as Anthropology and Cultural Studies with diverse
interests and perceptions. Paradoxically, given the persecution of
Candomblé practitioners in the early-mid nineteenth century, the
subsequent decades have witnessed the intensification of Afro-Brazilian religions as a permeating representation of Brazilian
character. Candomblé as a religious-cultural practice has evolved,
transcending its racial markers and sacred traditional rituals through
its visual material representations in the public sphere.
My presentation at the Global Urban Humanities symposium would
be a section of my Doctoral Research that adopts iconic criticism in
analysing the transition of Candomblé ritual artefacts from criminal
anthropology to cultural anthropology. It looks at the
contexts in which artefacts were seized from
shrines to museum specimen, to their
categorization as items to be examined under criminal anthropology
and then unto their preservation and recategorization as valuable items of Brazil’s cultural heritage. I shall also focus on the different inferences adopted by some of
the artefacts in their mobility.
Item Type: |
Conference or Workshop Item (Speech) |
|---|---|
Division/Institute: |
06 Faculty of Humanities > Department of Art and Cultural Studies > Institute of Social Anthropology |
UniBE Contributor: |
Jallo, Zainabu Ojo-Ago |
Subjects: |
200 Religion 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology 300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 390 Customs, etiquette & folklore |
Funders: |
[UNSPECIFIED] Universit of California , Berkeley, |
Language: |
English |
Submitter: |
Zainabu Ojo-Ago Jallo |
Date Deposited: |
13 May 2020 16:34 |
Last Modified: |
05 Dec 2022 15:37 |
URI: |
https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/142384 |
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