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This article discusses the growth of Pentecostal churches in favelas of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The author pleads for a systemic inclusion of religious ideas and practices in theoretical reflections on citizenship in the urban contexts of Brazil. Concretely, scholars need to include the explosive rise of Pentecostalism in their reflections on insurgent citizenship this religious movement fuels rights discourses and supports feelings of pride and dignity in the face of structural spatial exclusion. The author highlights two important relations between favela building practices and Pentecostalism. One concerns the affinity between the bottom-up organizational and doctrinal structure of the biggest Pentecostal denomination in Brazil (the Assemblies of God) and the informal building practices of favela residents. The other concerns the elective affinity between autoconstruction in terms of Pentecostal projects of self-fashioning and self-governance and autoconstruction in terms of favela building practices.

This article engages with current discussions on the politics of aesthetics to theorize the role of popular art in reproducing or contesting urban orders. Specifically, we engage with scholars who have taken up the work of Jacques Rancière to understand how power structures are normalized through ‘the distribution of the sensible’. Building on and critically engaging with debates on the ‘post-political city’, we suggest that all too often scholars fall back on a binary, state-centric approach that depicts non-state popular aesthetics as either revolutionary and disruptive, or as indicative of an alternative form of oppression. Drawing on our work in Kingston, Jamaica, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, we argue that sensorial-political, art-based urban struggles shape multiple urban orders that are distinct but not necessarily antagonistic. Applying Stuart Hall’s work on popular culture to contexts of criminal governance, we show how art is often simultaneously supportive and disruptive of urban orders.

This article discusses the rise of evangelical carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro in relation to spectacular carnival parades that feature Afro-Brazilian religious elements. The article exposes divergent intersections of religion and cultural heritage in Brazilian carnival. The first intersection aims to affirm the intrinsic connection between samba enredo carnival music and Afro-Brazilian religion by means of cultural heritage narratives, and the second type employs similar narratives to undo this connection, attempting to make samba enredo accessible to evangel-ical religious performance. The article demonstrates the important role secularism plays in upholding distinctions between " culture " and " religion, " and shows how evangelical carnival groups engage with such historical forma-tions by means of estra egia (strategy)—evangelical performances in cultural styles that are commonly perceived as " worldly. " This estra egia depends on and proposes a particular set of semiotic ideologies that allows for the separation of cultural form and spiritual content. Efforts to open up " national " cultural styles to different religious groups in light of multicultural politics are laudable, but advocates of such politics should keep in mind that cultural heritage regimes concerning samba push in the opposite direction and support a different set of semiotic ideologies. [religion, carnival, secularism, cultural heritage, Brazil] RESUMEN Este articulo discute el aumento de los desfiles carnavalescos evan elicos en Rio de Janeiro comparado con los desfiles carnavalescos espectaculares que exhiben elementos religiosos afro-brasil nos. El articulo expone intersecciones divergentes de religi on y patrimonio cultural en el carnaval brasil no. La primera intersecci on tiene el pro osito de afirmar la conexi on intrinseca entre la usica de carnaval samba enredo y la religi on afro-brasil na por medio de narrativas de patrimonio cultural, y el segundo tipo emplea narrativas similares para deshacer esta conexi on, intentando hacer la samba enredo accesible a las presentaciones religiosas evan elicas. El articulo de-muestra el importante papel que el secularismo juega en mantener las distinciones entre " cultura " y " religi on " y muestra omo los grupos carnavalescos evan elicos involucran tales formaciones his oricas por medio de una estra egia (estrategia)—presentaciones evan elicas en estilos culturales que son co unmente percibidos como " mundanos " . Esta estra egia depende de, y propone un juego particular de ideologias semi oticas que permite la separaci on de la forma cultural y el contenido espiritual. Los esfuerzos para abrir los estilos culturales " nacionales " a diferentes grupos religiosos a la luz de la politica multicultural son laudables, pero defensores de tal politica deberian tener presente que los regimenes de patrimonio cultural concernientes a la samba empujan en la direcci on opuesta y apoyan un diferente juego de ideologias semi oticas. [religi on, carnaval, secularismo, patrimonio cultural, Brasil]

In this chapter, we reflect on the installment of Pacifying Police Units (Unidades de Policia Pacificadora, UPPs) and on Brazilian military interventions in Rio de Janeiro in the years leading up to the Summer Olympics of 2016. We argue that the ‘pacification’ of the city entailed a rapprochement between religious groups and practices on the one hand and military and police actions on the other. Governmental promises to regain sovereign control of ‘wild’ urban territories leaned on Biblical representations of angelic intervention while governmental practices in urban places leaned on Pentecostal actors. The main argument of the chapter is that the continuum between this political theology and this religious governmentality amounts to what we call ‘postsecular pacification’, which we roughly define as the fusion of military interventions on national soil under democracy on the one hand and religious modes of governing urban territories on the other. To make this argument, this chapter by and large engages with two contemporary scholarly discussions: one centered on the militarization of urban life and the other on postsecular urbanism. We argue that insights harvested from these discussions should be united if we want to understand contemporary power and rule in Rio de Janeiro.

In contexts of insecurity and inequality across the world, criminal groups have developed into powerful, state-like organizations. Marginalized citizens in search of protection and support may look to criminal leaders, gangs and mafias rather than to politicians and state agencies. Providing residents with forms of social welfare, security and resolutions for dispute, these criminal organizations have taken on the functions and symbols of the state. But criminals’ positions of power are not only rooted in their social provisioning role, or even in the use of fear and force. Most Wanted illustrates how popular culture is producing the socio-political authority of bosses, gangs and cartels through discussions of Italian, Japanese and Russian mafias, and of criminal groups in Brazil, Ghana, Jamaica, and the United States. The essays collected here analyze different forms of visual, material and performative culture, including street art, film, video games, dance parties, popular music and various everyday objects.

The introduction to this symposium on entrepreneurial religion and neoliberal urbanism discusses leading scholarly approaches to religion and urban theory, arguing that, despite their merits, these approaches are in need of refinement. Theories on religion and urban theory too often describe religion as a reactionary phenomenon. Religious movements and spaces are generally defined as pockets of resistance and shelter against retreating or failing states under neoliberal restructuring programmes in the shadow of consumption dreams. Although religious actors and ideologies unquestionably form part of urban groups that are denied access to public and private means to wealth and security, the contributors to this symposium argue that within a global, comparative perspective, the entwinement of religion, state and market reveal more complicated configurations. Through a comparison of Islamic gated communities in Istanbul, Pentecostal prayer camps in Lagos and Pentecostal grassroots movements in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, this symposium demonstrates that urban religion should also be regarded as a constitutive force of contemporary capitalism and should therefore be placed at the heart of the neoliberal construction of urban space instead of at its margins.

In the past decade, the concept of sovereignty has swiftly risen in popularity within anthropological circles, especially in relation to violence in postcolonial and post-authoritarian societies (Das and Poole 2004). The rationale of this section is rooted in the aspiration to build on and further develop anthropological understandings of conflict and violence centered on the notion of sovereignty. Whereas the contributors to the section are indebted to theoretical approaches influenced by the writings of Agamben (1998, 2005), they also present analytic advantages and shortcomings. For instance, a recent critique of Agamben’s notion of sovereignty—and of many of his followers—is that it reproduces totalitarian notions of modern politics that cannot account for the historical existence of “ordered” communities “free from subjection, and … free from subjecting others” (Jennings 2011: 43).

Taking as a point of departure the Pentecostal use of digital world maps, this article argues that Pentecostal movements should be understood as part and parcel of contemporary convergence culture. A reading of the remediations of the Brazilian Pentecostal church - the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) - demonstrates that the simulacrum of global evangelical presence as put forward by the IURD is supported by the interplay between the desire for immediacy and the experience of hypermediacy, but also by the close resemblance between common expectations of new media and the prophetic drive towards a global community of Christians.

This article discusses the soundscape of a favela in Rio de Janeiro. It argues that sounds, and music in particular, play an important part in the creation and maintenance of boundaries between groups in the dense urban space of the favela. The politics of presence excercised by different groups constitutes the sonic charisma of the favela. Especially in relation to Pentecostal faith, it becomes obvious how the charisma of the city and in the city are related. A focus on the soundscape of the favela highlights the fact that electronic media are woven into the fabric of its social life and are part and parcel of the production of locality. Yet the mass-mediated sounds, employed to mark space and identity also demonstrate that identity is not produced either locally or supra-locally, but rather trans-locally and that electro-acoustic technology is essential to the deterritorialization and reterritorialization of religion.

In this paper I discuss several visual representations of a Brazilian neo-Pentecostal Church that has become involved in national politics. I argue that the Church employs representations of urban violence to enforce a Pentecostal imagination of the spiritual battle between God and the devil. The Church has been able to put forward this compelling Pentecostal interpretation of Brazilian society because its message is framed against the background of spectacular urban violence. Many Brazilians experience acts of violence directly and it is also a popular media topic that features in newspapers, on the television and in popular Brazilian magazines. One of the consequences of the recurring representation of violence is the formation of the image of a society divided between “the good” and “the bad.” Such a categorization leaves ample room for the Pentecostal Churches to seize and adopt the images and narratives of urban violence and to transform the dichotomy of “the good” versus “the bad” into the Pentecost...

This essay concerns contemporary flows of people, religion and information in relation to the postsecular European city; in general, it deals with the role of religious institutions and practices in the lives of recent arrivals in Western European cities. Ethnographic research among Brazilian migrants in Amsterdam and Barcelona shows that religious networks provide practical information on how to organize life in the city of arrival, and offer collective practices that enhance a sense of belonging. This essay focuses particularly on the role of evangelical Internet applications and sites. It briefly touches upon the political character of religious (virtual) communities in European cities at a time of enhanced polarization between so-called European insiders and outsiders. The chapter explores descriptions of religious organizations by looking closely at members of two evangelical Brazilian churches that deploy the possibilities of Internet applications to reproduce virtual communities alongside face-to-face interactions in the city. Keywords: Brazilian migrants; evangelical Brazilian churches; evangelical internet applications; media; postsecular city; Western European cities

The small public square in the middle of the favela1 was crowded when the famous pastor Marcos Pereira da Silva of the Igreja Assembleia de Deus dos Ultimos Dias stepped up the stage that was set up especially for the occasion. The church members of his congregation had hung up a huge screen on which were projected images of the service as it was conducted, alternated with images of a service held in an overpopulated prison in the city. The video of the prison showed hundreds of men behind bars, responding to an emotional gospel song performed by a young woman and men praying out loud with the Bible in their hands. The service in the square started with a loudly amplified, live performance of the same woman and was followed by the testimony of a well-dressed man. Clutching a microphone in his hand, he spoke of his life before his conversion. He was dressed in suit and tie and he gave an emotional speech about his life of crime. At a certain point he shouted: “Yes, I was walking around with a gun. I was riding in my convertible. I told everybody I was from the Comando Vermelho (drugs gang), but the Comando Vermelho is of the devil. The devil created the Comando Vermelho. He also created the Terceiro Comando (another drugs gang). Was I crazy? Was I dumb? No, I was possessed by the devil. But then Jesus came and the devil lost his power and I was liberated by the glory of Jesus Christ.” Approximately 300 men and women in the square cheered enthusiastically.