A umbanda e a glocalização

This paper interrogates a particular globalizing academic move: the appropriation of Afro-Brazilian religion by the academic study of religion in North America as a paradigmatic form of cultural mixture. Specifically, I ask what difference would it make if Umbanda were the key example of Brazilian cultural hybridity, rather than Candomblé serving as a more universal example of religious syncretism. I elaborate the concept of hybridity of refraction, according to which the ritual and doctrinal spectrum of Umbandas refracts the spectrum of social tensions in Brazilian society. Referring to recent theories of globalization, I argue that Umbanda’s internal variation manifests a variety of strategic appropriations by its practitioners of national and transnational concepts. This view reaffirms the contextualized autonomy of these religious agents, and it leads us to emphasize national aspects of religious glocalization, rather than transnational aspects of religious globalization.