PANDEMIC AS CATASTROPHE AND ANTIDOTE: ANTHROPOCENE INTERLOCUTIONS BETWEEN AFRICAN-BASED RELIGIONS AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

Elaborated from the surveys of the Mapping of Afro-brazilian Houses of Religion in Rio Grande do Sul (Module 2) – Pelotas, Rio Grande and Jaguarão, developed between 2020 and 2021, by request of the National Historical and Artistic Heritage Institute /RS, this article is the result of a qualitative work, based on participant observation and questionnaires and interviews, which sought to outline a social cartography of the Afro-religious field in the aforementioned site. The dialogues with the fathers and mothers of saints brought about by this study present narratives of these people about the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, its possible causes and effects. We have, therefore, that African-based religious houses bring in their cosmoecological and religious foundations premises that, when resonating in the discourse of the human sciences regarding the crises of individualistic and exploratory capitalism, which has so strongly marked the Anthropocene, this “time of catastrophes” (Stengers, 2015) – radicalizes it, allowing us to see in one side of the disease its antidote. Discourses such as, for example, which brings the necessary statement that “the pandemic is a symptom of a much greater catastrophe” (Segata, 2021), contribute for the resumption of the bonds that weave a good life.