Transnationalising Brazilian ritual music: Quimbanda in Argentina and Charismatic Catholicism in the USA

Abstract

This article compares the ritual music and religious contexts of two ceremonies associated with Brazil that are practiced abroad, specifically a Quimbanda ceremony in Buenos Aires, Argentina and a Catholic mass for healing in Newark, New Jersey, USA. Participants at the first ceremony (within a worship community that practices Afro-Brazilian religions) were mostly native Argentines, while those at the second were mostly Brazilian migrants. In both situations, the clergy and musicians are the primary agents who transnationalise the music from Brazil by learning, curating, and leading the ritual music. The processes of transnationalising ritual music of Quimbanda and the Charismatic Catholic Renewal (CCR) from Brazil to Argentina and the United States are quite similar, yet the practitioners, supernatural entities, and music have contrasting national affiliations in relation to their local settings. While both case studies include mobility, migration, and media, their comparison highlights the differing extents to which these factors have contributed to transnationalising ritual music. The ethnographic data are from ethnomusicological fieldwork conducted in 2008 and 2015.