Inhabitants of the Screen

Celebrity and the Production of Religious Authority in Bahian Candomblé

Authors

  • Mattijs van de Port University of Amsterdam VU University Amsterdam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v24i3.254

Keywords:

Celebrity politics, candomblé, religious authority, media imaginaries, Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

In Bahia, Brazil, the public articulation of religious authority comes to depend more and more on celebrity discourses. This article takes the Afro-Brazilian spirit possession cult Candomblé as an example to show how in media-saturated societies religious and media imaginaries become inextricably entangled. In their struggle to be publicly recognized as a proper ‘religion’, Candomblé priests ?nd themselves overcoming their media-shyness. Televisual fame is a value understood by the public at large, and its acquisition adds weight to the status and prestige of Candomblé priests in ways that religious criteria for priestly authority cannot accomplish.

Author Biography

  • Mattijs van de Port, University of Amsterdam VU University Amsterdam
    Mattijs van de Port is professor of popular religiosity at the VU University Amsterdam, and assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. He has done research in the former Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, and since 2001 in Bahia, Brazil. His most recent book is Ecstatic Encounters: Bahian Candomblé and the Quest for the Really Real (Amsterdam University Press, 2011).

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Published

2011-12-28

How to Cite

van de Port, M. (2011). Inhabitants of the Screen: Celebrity and the Production of Religious Authority in Bahian Candomblé. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 24(3), 254-274. https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v24i3.254