Dinheiro Vivo: Money and religion in Brazil

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Sansi-Roca, Roger. 2007. Dinheiro Vivo: Money and religion in Brazil. Critique of Anthropology, 27(3), pp. 319-339. ISSN 0308-275X [Article]

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Abstract or Description

For decades, social scientists have seen money and religion in Brazil as two incompatible terms. In contrast, this article shows how money has always been present in Brazilian popular religion. This argument leads to a second point: a criticism of the interpretation of Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal churches as `money fetishists', religions of neoliberalism and globalization. Neo-Pentecostals in Brazil appropriate money not just for economic ends, but also with the political project of Christianizing the country. More generally, the article introduces a different perspective both from the classical discourse on money as an agent of globalization and modernity on the one hand, and a more recent literature on the personalization of money and alternative currencies, on the other. In both the discourses on modernity and personalization, nation-states are increasingly marginal. But the nation is still very much at the centre of the Brazilian Neo-Pentecostal project.

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Article

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https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X07080360