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Abstract
Drawing upon critiques that claim a lack of interest in spirituality in development studies, this paper aims to show how alternative ethical forms of development can be enacted when adopting shamanic spiritual worldviews. The paper draws upon ethnographic research conducted in Terra Mirim, an intentional shamanic community, located in the Itamboatá valley, Bahia, Brazil. Drawing upon contributions from Chicano scholars, this research engages with the concept of ‘spiritual activism’ to understand how alternative ontologies of development are shaped around the idea of interconnectedness and relational consciousness.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the research participants and, especially, the community of Terra Mirim. This paper greatly benefited from the comments of two anonymous reviewers and from the advice from the guest editors: Thomas Smith, Hayley Leck and Amber Murrey. My thanks go also to Daniel Bos and Kathy Aitken for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. The research was completed with the help of the GLOBAL–RURAL grant funded by the European Research Council at Aberystwyth University and from La Sapienza University of Rome. Any remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.
Notes
1. Mackinnon, Shamanism and Spirituality, 54.
2. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstacy.
3. Favilla, “Cultura Xamânica e Sabedoria Ancestral.”
4. The Shaman is considered the ‘mentor’, the ‘wiseman’, the ‘person that knows’ (Sampaio 2011).
5. Sargisson, Utopian Bodies and the Politics of Transgression, 29.
6. Clarke and Jennings, “Introduction”; Gergan, “Animating the Sacred, Sentient and Spiritual”; Lunn, “The Role of Religion, Spirituality and Faith in Development”; Sargisson and Sargent, Living in Utopia.
7. Sanderson, “The Challenge of Placing Spirituality within Geographies of Development.”
8. Partridge, “Introduction.”
9. Lunn, The Role of Religion, Spirituality and Faith in Development.
10. Anzaldúa, “…the Path of Conocimiento…”
11. Regarding my positionality, it should be noted that I am not a ‘local’ of the context studied. For more on how I have attempted to decolonise my views from a Eurocentric perspective by engaging in embodied shamanic rituals that emphasise a more intuitive system of knowledge production, see Fois, Enacting Intentional Heterotopias; Fois, “Understanding Ethnography through a Life Course Framework.”
12. The interviews were mainly conducted in Portuguese with the exception of five interviews conducted in English. In the first two visits, I interviewed 20 Brazilians and 5 foreigners who were temporary visiting the community.
13. Fois, Enacting Intentional Heterotopias.
14. The GLOBAL-RURAL project, undertaken by Aberystwyth University and funded by European Research Council (n.339567), investigates how rural spaces are influenced by globalisation and how these ruralities shape, transform and/or resist global flows.
15. Clarke, “Faith Matters”; Lunn, The Role of Religion, Spirituality and Faith in Development; Ver Beek, “Spirituality: A Development Taboo.”
16. Ver Beek, “Spirituality: A Development Taboo.”
17. Ibid., 36.
18. Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World.
19. Lunn, The Role of Religion, Spirituality and Faith in Development.
20. Ibid.; Radcliffe and Laurie, “Culture and Development.”
21. Bartolini et al., “The Place of Spirit”; Kong, “Global Shifts, Theoretical Shifts.”
22. Lunn, The Role of Religion, Spirituality, and Faith in Development, 942.
23. McGregor, “Geographies of Religion and Development.”
24. Clarke, “Faith Matters.”
25. Clarke and Jennings, “Introduction,” 5.
26. (1) Faith-based representative organisations or apex bodies; (2) Faith-based charitable or development organisations; (3) Faith-based socio-political organisations; (4) Faith-based missionary organisations; (5) Faith-based illegal or terrorist organisations (Clarke, ‘Faith Matters’).
27. Clarke, “Faith-Based Organisations and International Development”; Clarke, “Faith Matters.”
28. Bebbington, “NGOs and Uneven Development”; McGregor, “Geographies of Religion and Development”; Olson, “Development, Transnational Religion, and the Power”; Sheringham, “Creating ‘Alternative Geographies’.”
29. Clarke, “Faith Matters,” 836.
30. Ibid., 837.
31. Bartolini et al., “The Place of Spirit.”
32. Smith, “Witchcraft, Spiritual Worldviews and Environmental Management.”
33. Heelas et al., The Spiritual Revolution.
34. Ibid., 6.
35. Bartolini et al., “Alternative Spiritualities,” 383.
36. Bartolini et al., “The Place of Spirit,” 350.
37. U.S. third world feminism is used by Sandoval to identify an oppositional political activity and consciousness in the US that can be differentiated from hegemonic feminism. It aims to go beyond the rational imperatives of hegemonic thought and propose a paradigmatic shift for a theoretical and methodological feminist oppositional consciousness (see Sandoval, ‘US Third World Feminism.’).
38. Sandoval, “The Crossing of Gloria Anzaldúa.”
39. Levine, “Anzaldúa's Critique of Rationalist Epistemology,” 172–73.
40. Keating, “‘I'm a Citizen of the Universe’,” 54.
41. Keating, “Anzaldúan Theories for Social Change”; Keating, “Gloria Anzaldúa’s Spiritual Activism.”
42. See note 10 above.
43. Keating, “Anzaldúan Theories for Social Change,” 11.
44. MacKian, Everyday Spirituality.
45. Ibid., 64.
46. Ibid., 154.
47. Keating, “Introduction,” 9.
48. The vision is a key element in shamanism; it is a way for the Shaman to channel a transcendental spiritual dimension obtained through an altered state of consciousness (Santos Jr., Zelosamente Habitando a Terra).
49. Santos Jr., Zelosamente Habitando a Terra.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Schwartz, “The Manumisson of Slaves,” 607.
53. According to Almeida (in Souza, Movimento Quilombola, 3), Brazilian legal documents dating from 1740 identified as defining features of the Quilombos community: a minimum quantity of fugitives (generally 5); geographical isolation; habitual dwelling or ranch/farm; and, self-sufficiency.
54. Amorim and Germani, Quilombos da Bahia; Reis and Gomes, História dos Quilombos no Brasil.
55. Amorim and Germani, Quilombos da Bahia; Leite, “Os Quilombos no Brasil”; Reis and Gomes, História dos Quilombos no Brasil.
56. Souza, Movimento Quilombola.
57. Starting from km 01 of the highway BA 093, these eight communities are Santa Rosa, Oiteiro, Jardim Renatao, Convel, Guaíba, Dandá, Palmares and Pitanga de Palmares (Sampaio, 2011). The intentional community of TM is between Convel and Guaíba.
58. Bledsoe, Quilombola Struggles in Bahia, 31.
59. IBGE, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística.
60. Sampaio, Integrating the Global and the Local.
61. Porto and Carvalho, Savador na globalizaçao; Reis, 2007 in Santos Jr., Zelosamente Habitando a Terra.
62. See note 59 above.
63. Porto and Carvalho, Savador na globalizaçao.
64. Bledsoe, Quilombola Struggles in Bahia.
65. Santos Jr., Zelosamente Habitando a Terra, 337.
66. Bledsoe, Quilombola Struggles in Bahia, 94.
67. Waiselfisz, “Mapa da Violência 2012.”
68. Bledsoe, Black Geographies, 131.
69. See note 24 above.
70. Final report of Aguas Pura project.
71. Bebbington, “NGOs and Uneven Development.”
72. Frost and Egri, “The Shamanic Perspective.”
73. Keating, “Gloria Anzaldúa' s Spiritual Activism,” 60.
74. Ibid.
75. Anzaldúa, “…the Path of Conocimiento…,” 558.
76. MacKian, Everyday Spirituality.
77. Bledsoe, Quilombola Struggles in Bahia.
78. Proposal of the project ‘Ecological School and Playing with Arts project.’
79. Briggs, “Indigenous Knowledge,” 239.
80. Vintges, “Freedom an Spirituality,” 102.
81. Carrette, Foucault and Religion; Vintges, “Freedom an Spirituality.”
82. Gibson-Graham, A Postcapitalist Politics, 120.
83. Keating, “Shifting Perspectives,” 242.
84. Ibid.
85. See note 43 above.
86. See note 71 above.
87. Keating, “Gloria Anzaldúa' s Spiritual Activism.”
88. Radcliffe and Laurie, “Culture and Development.”
89. See note 23 above.
90. Bartolini et al., “The Place of Spirit.”