Abstract:
Recent decades have seen a renewed sociological interest in religion. However, contemporary sociological interpretations of religion tend to be oriented towards the global North, overlooking vibrant religious life present in the South. Brazil represents one of the most religiously diverse regions in the world, with 97% of the populace affirming a belief in God (Datafolha 2007), and many Brazilians integrating religious and spiritual practices into their daily lives. By exploring contemporary Brazilian religiosity through adherents’ experiences and perceptions in three distinctive religious communities (the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Umbanda and Salto Quântico), this study seeks to determine the role of religion in late modern neoliberal Brazil. Religious adherence represents the distinct and often creative ways that individuals of diverse backgrounds and identities deal with the trials arising from the interface of the individual life world with wider structural forces. The problems individuals bring to religion are a reflection of socially, politically and economically situated phenomena taking place in contemporary Brazil. However, religion also speaks to the search for meaning and answers to “ultimate questions” in the late modern context of relativism and uncertainty. This study considers three specific areas of focus: firstly, the role that religion occupies in the lives of adherents in Brazil and their motivations for seeking out religious communities; secondly, the appeal of religion as a form of meaning making in various aspects of personal experience; and finally, the ways in which religion is integrated into everyday life, particularly through experiential spirituality and embodied practices. Drawing on two and a half months of fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Aracaju, this study engages an ethnographic methodological approach, informed in part by grounded theory. Through data collated from participant observation and semi-structured life history interviews, insights are provided into the myriad ways in which individuals engage with religious practices on a daily basis, how they derive meaning from their spiritually informed interpretations of personal experience, and the symbolic and tangible ways they perceive their lives to be enriched by their religious affiliation.