Research: Orienting oneself in the light: the gypsy presence in Afro-Brazilian religious practices
PhD candidate in Peace Studies for Curriculum 2 “Identities, Memories, Religions and Peace.” I graduated with honors in Ethno-Anthropological Disciplines (LM-1) from La Sapienza University of Rome, with a thesis in political and religious anthropology entitled “Social Ecologies of axé: Afro-Brazilian Religious Practices in Rio de Janeiro,” supervised by Professor Emily Pierini. A three-year graduate in Theories and Practices of Anthropology (L-42) from La Sapienza University of Rome. The doctoral research project I am proposing aims to connect local responses to transnational and global phenomena, through the analysis of the gypsy presence in Afro-Brazilian religious spaces - an issue that can be studied as much in Brazil as in Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal). It is a useful and interesting topic to discover creative ways of coexistence born precisely in spaces of religious and political action of two historically stigmatized groups. In life as in research, my informal work and volunteer experiences have been punctuated by collaborations in intercultural mediation and education projects. During my master's degree program, I continued to explore these issues and, thanks to obtaining a scholarship, I was able to carry out six months of field research in Rio de Janeiro (September 2023 - March 2024), counting on the academic support of the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, under the supervision of Prof. Vânia Zikan Cardoso and the academic support of the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, through the support of Professors Joana Bahia and Giovanna Capponi. The research project I am proposing, focused on the analysis of the Gypsy presence within Afro-Brazilian spaces, would like to contribute to the contemporary anthropological debate with a religious anthropology perspective that takes into account both the positive and material aspects of interreligious dialogue, as well as its conflicts - internal and external, in order to propose examples of peacebuilding and innovative forms of active citizenship. During the course of the camp in Brazil, in fact, I had the opportunity to get to know and collaborate with numerous sociocultural institutes born within Afro-Brazilian places of worship (terreiros) and brought together within the MAR (Matrizes Africanas Reunidas) network of the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Participation in the social work actions proposed by these spaces, where I learned about the collaboration with gypsy communities in the area, showed that the proposed projects (distributions of basic necessities, community kitchens, racial literacy, crafts, walks, classes, etc., but also parties and performances) are all aimed at building peaceful relationships and mutual support, in a conscious and nonviolent way, for the construction of safe spaces and peaceful coexistence in a general context of social inequality and daily violence. The alliances of the proposed field of research, moreover, are interesting because the protagonists of these historical processes are two groups that live daily forms of cancel cultures and benefit from each other in Afro-diasporic religious spaces to collectively (re)affirm their existence, as much on the level of human communication as on the level of mediunic and possessions.