The cabin: the social senses of the Afro-Brazilian religious objects in the extreme north of Brazil

Abstract

This article articulates two dimensions: a) the commercialization of Afro-Brazilian religious objects and b) the social senses mobilized by the research subjects to qualify such objects and products from the material and symbolic dimensions. Ethnographic research was carried out in Macapá, capital of the State of Amapá in northern Brazil, in a specific place that commercializes products and utensils of rituals, in order to understand how an establishment can act as an axis of diffusion of materials, information and experiences. The research showed how places of production of Afro-Brazilian religiosity intersect with ways of understanding and negotiating the meanings attributed to the efficiency and effectiveness of objects, as well as to understand how those objects, through ritual practice, are endowed with the possibility of diligence and capacity of communication between humans and spiritual beings, humans and non-humans.