Transnationalism and religion migration: Brazilian candomblé in Italy

Abstract

Transnationalism (Assayag, 1998) was a lens which promised new analyses and interpretations, on the wave of impressive migratory phenomena, which have led the attention of anthropologists toward migration processes. As scholars pointed out, it is important to study transnational communities not only from the point of view of their constitution (Frigerio, 1997), but also of their political formation and their meaning, always political, in the homeland, in terms of prestige (Capone, 2004) and in the struggle for power.

All the scholars of African American religions have always dealt with transnational phenomena, since this religious world has been established both in the Americas and in Europe just in interweave between deterritorialization and constant contacts with Africa.

In the case of italian candomblé, after a first period in which some priests or priestesses experienced with more or less good outcomes the acquisition of new initiates, when the communities have settled down, began the race for the appropriation of a religious descent. That is, while from the 1990s to today, the expansion in Italy had practically no echoes, and the communities, with italian candomblé priests, had only utilitarian contacts with Africa and Brazil and did not build a true network, in the last two years some communities had proposals from other sanctuary lines, in an attempt of appropriation that makes visible how religious migration can become an instrument of prestige and power for both African and Brazilian traditions and lead to projects that probably precede a transnational phase, still to be built.