New feelings of belonging, new territories and religious conflicts: Mapping the Afro-Brazilian religious temples in Rio de Janeiro

Submitted continuously to discrimination and persecution, African-based Brazilian religions have only survived through time thanks to a two-folded strategy: syncretism – that is, constructing a symbiosis with Catholic practices -, and desired marginality, or clandestinity, of their practices as well as their worship places.

Globalization came to sharply shake the Brazilian religious universe. On the one hand, the significant growth of neo-pentecostal denominations can be noticed, having as consequences both a inter-religious market competition, and a symbolic and physical violence against african-based religions. On the other hand, ethnic-based social movements reckon their belonging to a diaspora, re-valuing their African heritage as much as their religions. Replacing the old syncretic ambiguity and the desired clandestinity, a new strategy that reinforces the African descendants’ public image, their religions’ visibility - now strongly re-africanized - and their worship sites (“terreiros” or simply “houses”) gains territory.

The project now presented, “Mapping African-based religious ‘houses’”, was born out of a demand from a number of “mães-de-santo” (female religious leaders) directed to the Interdisciplinary Center of  Memory and Afrodescendant Research at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro – (PUC-Rio). The project aims at the insertion of African-based religious references together with their worship sites, or ‘houses’, on top of official city maps, over which urban planners and their decision-makers counterparts generally look and work. As such, the project’s objective is to make space for the recognition of, and to positively affirm, the African-based legitimate religious references in the urban landscape.

This new action-research experience brings together academics, religious leaders and ethnic movements, while making use of new technologies such as GPS, in order to explore and open new land use possibilities to subaltern religious segments (mostly led by women) traditionally expelled from prime real state sites.