Between God’s world and Devil’s world: Urban experiences and Pentecostalism in/from a Rio de Janeiro’s favela

  • Laura Petracchi Università di Milano-Bicocca, Italy
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2250

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic research conducted between April 2013 and October 2014 in some favelas of Rio de Janeiro, the article explores the relation between religion, city and construction of subjectivity. The aim is to analyse the way in which Pentecostal languages and grammars shape the experience of urban vulnerability in Rocinha, the biggest favela of the city. The reconfiguration processes of subjectivity are connected with a new understanding – in a biblical way – of both Rocinha and the whole city. Favela and metropolis are lived at the intersection of God’s world, Devil’s world and social political and economic forces which conspire to structure the experiences of discrimination and violence in favela. Dialoguing with the voices and life trajectories of some interlocutors the article analyses the way in which Pentecostal language allows people to reorganize the understanding of urban dynamics, subjects, relationships and categories that produce the experience of urban vulnerability in Rio de Janeiro.

Author Biography

Laura Petracchi, Università di Milano-Bicocca, Italy

Laura Petracchi is PhD Candidate in Social and Cultural at the University of Milano Bicocca. She has worked for many years in Brazil on violence and subjectivity. In 2010 she was visiting researcher at the Federal University of Amazonia (UFAM) and she conducted a fieldwork in a Caboclos community in the Brazilian Amazonia. In 2013-2014 she was visiting researcher at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Museu Nacional, UFRJ). Between 2013 and 2014 she conducted one and half year of fieldwork working and living in some favelas of Rio de Janeiro. She’s currently writing her Phd thesis on urban vulnerability, violence, Pentecostalism, suffering and affect.

Published
2016-08-06
How to Cite
Petracchi, L. (2016) “Between God’s world and Devil’s world: Urban experiences and Pentecostalism in/from a Rio de Janeiro’s favela”, Anuac, 5(1), pp. 205-224. doi: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2250.
Issue
Vol 5 No 1 (2016)
Section
Thematic section: Religions and cities. Emerging approaches in urban anthropology

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