The Enactment of Disbelief: Performance of Spirits and the Presentification of the Real

Authors

  • Vânia Z. Cardoso Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
  • Scott C. Head Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/2179-0892.ra.2013.82469

Keywords:

Performance, Theatricality, Disbelief, Narrative, Spirits, Capoeira.

Abstract

For Fabian, performance rewrites the classic Shakespearian question “to be or not to be” as “to be and not to be”. It is through the ambiguity of performance evoked by this play of words that we seek to explore the meanings of disbelief that permeate both stories about spirits, told by those who seek the spirits’ help and advice in Afro-Brazilian religious centers, and stories about mandinga (‘sorcery’) in capoeira. Starting from the theatrical relation between enactment and the suspension of disbelief, we suspend this essay between retracing ways through which an essentially theatrical view of social life has been elaborated in the social sciences, and an ethnographic intervention in that vision, moving towards a more properly performative conception of the real.

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Published

2013-12-12

Issue

Vol. 56 No. 2 (2013)

Section

Special Number: Anthropology and Performance

License

Copyright (c) 2014 Revista de Antropologia

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How to Cite

Cardoso, V. Z., & Head, S. C. (2013). The Enactment of Disbelief: Performance of Spirits and the Presentification of the Real. Revista De Antropologia, 56(2), 257-289. https://doi.org/10.11606/2179-0892.ra.2013.82469