Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience by Olivia Sheringham

2016; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 32; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/port.2016.0005

2222-4270

Alan P. Marcus,

Religion and Society in Latin America

Reviews 109 Monteiro is currently enjoying a reappraisal in Portugal, notably since his play, Felizmente Há Luar! [Thankfully There is Moonlight!] (1961) was included in the official high school curriculum of readings on twentieth-century Portuguese literature. Rhian Atkin’s contribution to the understanding of this seldom studied Portuguese author is both important and timely. The four chapters of Lisbon Revisited titled ‘Masculine Subjectivities in the Modern City’, ‘Masculinities in the Streets’, ‘Masculinities and Consumer Society’, ‘Men at Home, Men at Work’ include a comparative analysis between the three books (by Soares, Saramago and Sttau Monteiro) from a multidisciplinary perspective. Reading Sttau Monteiro along with Pessoa and Saramago in a time span that covers some of the most significant socio-political and literary changes that occurred in Portugal during the twentieth century brings fresh insight to Lisbon Revisited. The skilful close cultural reading of these three Portuguese authors and the three books selected is relevant to all specialists and readers of Portuguese literature and urban masculinities studies. Olivia Sheringham, Transnational Religious Spaces: Faith and the Brazilian Migration Experience, Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship Series (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 226 pages. Print, ebook. Reviewed by Alan P. Marcus (Towson University, MD) The book includes seven chapters, an appendix (with a list of research participants ), notes, bibliography and index. There are six figures and two tables. Dr Olivia Sheringham has focused on Brazilian migrants in London on two levels: by examining the broader processes of global transformation, and the ways in which immigrants adapt to such processes. This book is a much-needed scholarly publication, and despite the fact that Brazilians have had a long history of relations with the UK (ranging from economic and diplomatic relations to exiles and, more recently, immigrants), scholars have been slow to look at Brazilian immigrants in the UK, with little research available until now. In this case, I would have chosen ‘in England’ (or more specifically, perhaps, ‘in London’) at the end of the book title. Sheringham provides a cohesive transnational theoretical backdrop which sets the context for excerpts from narratives of migrants’ interviews she conducted, and which she effectively uses to highlight her statements. She also includes useful excerpts from her own field notes. By drawing on migrants’ narratives, she reveals how religion cannot be confined to one place; rather it influences those who experience both the absence of family or friends, and the lives of those who themselves migrate. Sheringham’s research was conducted in London and Brazil between 2009 and 2010. She traces the relationship between religion and globalization on multiple scales, pointing out that Brazil is the second largest Protestant country Reviews 110 in the world and the largest Pentecostal, and also the world capital of Spiritism (Kardecism). Here she traces the three main currents of Protestantism in Brazil to early twentieth century, then ‘conversion Protestantism’ which originated in US Protestant Revivalism, and, lastly to Neo-Pentecostalism, which has emerged recently and which is characterized by the ‘Theology of Prosperity’. She makes the important point that there is no separation between before/after Brazil/London; rather they are interconnected transnational religious spaces. Moreover, Brazilian immigrants in the UK do not fit neatly into the dichotomy of ‘local’ and ‘global’. She is interested in how Brazilian immigrants negotiate their religious beliefs and how they create new connections between different practices in different places and, what they ‘do’ with religion. She aptly explains to the reader how religion is ‘practiced, experienced, imagined and embodied by migrants as they create and inhabit spaces that span multiple scales’ (p. 7). Religious remittances is a concept she explores commendably. Sheringham found common patterns of downward mobility among migrants, and that Brazilians are most likely to be irregular in their legal status. She underscored current threads in her research, which include how the church became ‘family’ (the church as a refuge); a search for a sense of belonging (religious community or immigrant); that faith was a way to suppress saudades (a Portuguese word for ‘homesickness’); that returning to Brazil presented a further challenge of re-adaptation; and, lastly, that religious remittances play an important role in the return context as well as in the migration...