Ethnoreligious Identity Politics in Bahia, Brazil

Abstract

In the Brazilian state of Bahia today, Afro-Brazilian activists are confronting racial inequalities and racist practices that until recently many Brazilians refused to acknowledge. Many groups engaging these problems are religious, and ethnic affirmation based in African-derived religions such as Candombl6 is at the heart of the black consciousness movement. Christian organizations, however, vary widely in their views about such affirmations of Afro-Brazilian culture, and evangelical Christians generally keep their distance from Candomble. This article explores the construction of antiracist evangelical identities against the backdrop of competing discourses about the relationship between religion and Afro-Brazilian identity. Ethnoreligious identity has become a highly contested topic in AfroBrazilian religious communities. While Brazil is traditionally a Catholic country, an estimated 15 percent of its population is Protestant (or evangelical, which is the term more commonly employed in Brazil). About twothirds of Brazilian evangelicals are Pentecostals, who make up the fastestgrowing religious group in Brazil today (Freston, 1994). In addition, while most Brazilians still identify themselves as Catholic, increasing numbers of people are involved in African-derived religions such as Candombl6. For many Bahian participants in the black consciousness movement, activism goes hand in hand with affirming one's ethnic identity through the practice or at least valorization of Candombl6. Even in the Catholic Church, which has denounced African-derived religion in the past, attitudes are changing. In 1999, for example, O Centro Arquidiocesano de Articulacao da Pastoral Afro (the Archdiocesean Coordinating Center for the African Pastoral-CAAPA) was founded to address racism within the church, to