Page 77 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

62 Martijn Oosterbaan

and the impure are universal ordering mechanisms of societies, which
often involve the body as a powerful metaphor for society.

The body is a model which can stand for any bounded system. Its boundar-
ies can represent any boundaries which are threatened or precarious. The
body is a complex structure. The functions of its different parts and their
relation afford a source of symbols for other complex structures. We cannot
possibly interpret rituals concerning excreta, breast milk, saliva and the rest
unless we are prepared to see in the body a symbol of society, and to see the
powers and dangers credited to social structure reproduced in small on the
human body. (Douglas 2002 [1966], 142)

Taking Douglas’ important insight concerning the body and the notions
of purity as a starting point, it becomes apparent that evangelical rituals of
purification unite religious modes of in and exclusion with other forms of
social distinction. As Zygmunt Bauman has also argued, body and com-
munity are often perceived as “the last defensive outposts” amidst the
uncertainty and insecurity so characteristic of “liquid modernity.”
According to Bauman, “[t]he body’s new primacy is reflected in the ten-
dency to shape the image of community . . . after the pattern of the ideally
protected body” (Bauman 2000, 184). Especially in the favela, the ideas
about bodily impurity as a result of spirit possession are related to distinc-
tions between groups of people (communities), which involve strong moral
judgments about others. Moreover, the notion of impure bodies enforces
the imagination of impure spaces, which subsequently can be purified
through collective exorcism. This echoes the proposition of Arjun
Appadurai to understand rituals of spatial purification as important “tech-
niques for the production of locality” (1996, 182).

Purification, Social Life, and Media

People who frequented the evangelical churches in the favela often opposed
their practices to those of the other inhabitants. In their view, the spiritual
battle between God and the devil is visible especially in the domain of pop-
ular culture at large. It is in critical dialogue with other practices that evan-
gelical doctrines acquire their meaning. Musica evangélica (evangelical
music) is opposed to musica do mundo (worldly music)—samba, pagode,
and funk—because that is the popular music of parties at which people
court, drink, and dance without obeying the strict moral prescriptions of
the Bible. Most evangélicos understand these cultural practices to be the
root of all social and individual problems. According to many evangélicos