Beyond Reality: Notes on the Representations of the Self in Santo Forte and Estamira

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Notes

 1 The title of the book, Quarto de despejo, means scrap or rubbish room but it has been published in English with the rather melodramatic title Child of the Dark. For a discussion of Carolina de Jesus and of books written from the perspective of favela dwellers see my essay ‘Cities without Maps: Favelas and the Aesthetics of Realism’ (Jaguaribe, 2007a: 100–21).

 2 See my essay, ‘ Cities without Maps: Favelas and the Aesthetics of Realism’, (Jaguaribe, 2007a: 100–21), and see also in a similar vein Esther Hamburger's essay, ‘Políticas da representação: ficção e documentário em Ônibus 174’, in O cinema do real, ed. Maria Dora Mourão and Amir Labaki (São Paulo Cosac & Naify, 2005).

 3 See Beatriz Jaguaribe (2007b).

 4 In his well known study A morte branca do feiticeiro negro: umbanda e sociedade brasileira, Renato Ortiz argues that: ‘Frequently in sociological literature, the city is seen exclusively as a center of secularization, the locale where there is a weakening of practices and religious beliefs. Our study points precisely an opposite movement; umbanda is an essentially urban religion, its growth runs parallel to the growth of the large Brazilian urban centers. In this manner, the city is the privileged space for the flourishing of the umbanda religion’ (1999: 214). The translation from the Portuguese is mine. Ortiz's book was initially published in 1978 by Vozes, Petrópolis. I use the 1999 edition.

 5 For a discussion of Max Weber's use of the terms ‘disenchantment'and ‘enchantment’ see Antônio Flávio Pierucci (2003).

 6 For a discussion of the sacred and the profane in modernity see Charles Taylor's seminal book, A Secular Age (2007). See Ortiz and his arguments about the urban environment of umbanda practicioners, see Antônio Flávio Pierucci (2003) 4.

 7 See Consuelo Lins (2004: 100).

 8 See Consuelo Lins’ arguments in O documentário de Eduardo Coutinho (2004).

 9 See Consuelo Lins, arguments in O documentário de Eduardo Coutinho (2004), 8.

10 See Coutinho's statements in O cinema do real, p. 111. The translation from the Portuguese is mine.

11 See Coutinho's statements in O cinema do real, p. 111. The translation from the Portuguese is mine, p. 123. The translation from the Portuguese is mine.

12 See Coutinho's statements in O cinema do real, p. 111. The translation from the Portuguese is mine, p. 121. My translation.

13 See the critique of testimonio in Doris Sommer's essay ‘No Secrets’ and Alberto Moreira's essay ‘The Aura of Testimonio’ in The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America (1996).

14 Similarly to Catholicism, umbanda is a religion of the worshiping of images insofar as they are the bearers of the invisible. Umbanda deities intervene in the daily lives of humans and compete among themselves for positions of prominence and power. The deities have an essence; a form of being that empowers them and allows them to intervene in both nature and in human affairs. The question that arises for the devotees is that the deities and the spirits of the dead often overlap but the believers do not control the appearance and manifestation of the deities or the returning dead. While participating in umbanda ceremonies or in Spiritist sessions they may conjure, recite chants or sacred words that bring forth the deity or spirit. But as several interviewed subjects announced, the deities and spirits often descend unexpectedly.

15 See Consuelo Lins, ibid., 5. Renato Ortiz (1978) makes the same argument in his afore-mentioned book.

16 For an overview of umbanda in Brazil see Renato Ortiz (1988), and Diana Brown (1986).

17 See Diana Brown, (1986) 17, p. 1.

18 There is much debate and contention as to whether umbanda represents a form of transculturation where Afro-Brazilian elements are whitened and become enmeshed with Catholic and Spiritist beliefs, while at the same time popular Catholicism incorporates elements of Afro-Brazilian religions (Ortiz 1978). According to this view umbanda represents a whitening process and a singularly Brazilian form of religiosity that attempts to accommodate hierarchically a diversity of class, racial and cultural affiliations. But although the origins of umbanda may have veered toward a cultural nationalism, this does not explain how umbanda deities infiltrated into Uruguay and Argentina. For Diana Brown umbanda has a deeply embedded political agenda that mirrors the transformations of Brazilian society. It is beyond the scope of this paper to fully debate the symbolic and political resonance of umbanda practices themselves.

19 See Charles Taylor (2007).

20 See Charles Taylor (2007), p. 39.

21 See Charles Taylor (2007), p. 42.

22 See Charles Taylor (2007), pp. 29, 30.

23 See Charles Taylor (2007), p. 3; O cinema do real, p. 124.

24 See Mariana Baltar (2008: 212). The translation is mine.

25 See Mariana Baltar (2008: 212). The translation is mine, p. 212.

26 See Cléber Eduardo (2004). The translation from the Portuguese is mine.