Moved by the dead : haunting and devotion in São Paulo, Brazil / Michael Amoruso.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Amoruso, Michael, author.

Series:

Where religion lives

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Catholic Church--Brazil--São Paulo--Customs and practices.

Catholic Church.

Prayers for the dead.

Religion and culture--Political aspects--Brazil--São Paulo.

Religion and culture.

Collective memory--Brazil--São Paulo.

Collective memory.

Black people--Violence against--Brazil--History.

Black people.

São Paulo (Brazil)--Religious life and customs.

São Paulo (Brazil).

Physical Description:

xvi, 184 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, [2025]

Summary:

"In the sprawling city of São Paulo, a weekly practice known as devotion to souls (devoção às almas) draws devotees to Catholic churches, cemeteries, and other sites associated with tragic or unjust deaths. The living pray and light candles for the souls of the dead, remembering events and circumstances in a rite of collective suffering. Yet contemporary devotion to souls is not confined to Catholic adherents or fixed to specific locations. The practice is also linked to popular tours of haunted sites in the city, and it moves within an urban environment routinely marked by violence and death. While based in Catholic traditions, devotion to souls is as complex and multifaceted as religion itself in Brazil, where African, Portuguese, and other cultural forms have blended and evolved over centuries. Michael Amoruso's insightful work uses the methods of ethnography, religious studies, and urban studies to consider how devotion to souls embodies, adapts, and challenges conventional ideas of religion as tethered to specific sites and practices. Examining devotees' varied ways of ascribing meaning to their actions, Amoruso argues that devotion to souls acts as form of what he calls 'mnemonic repair,' tying the living to the dead in a struggle against the forces of forgetting"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The afflicted city

The day of the souls

The souls of São Paulo

Religious transit

Sympathy for the dead

The politics of mnemonic repair

Postscript: the afflictions of memory.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781469685168

1469685167

9781469685175

1469685175

OCLC:

1456587142