In this most literate and useful ethnography, Rowan Ireland undertakes an examination of the links between religion and politics over the last two decades in a suburban community in northeastern Brazil. In contrast to other works that have emerged in recent years, Ireland’s takes a broad approach to this subject, focusing on religion as it is lived at the ground level and arguing for a conception of politics not as elite-level power play but as “a contest between paradigms for living, as expressed in the practice of everyday life and in representations of the good in social, economic, and power relationships” (p. 10).
Using a qualitative approach that involves biological case studies and detailed descriptions of events and institutions, Ireland carefully examines the day-to-day political engagement of three major religious groupings. Following two introductory chapters that lay out the logic of the investigation and provide background data on the field, Ireland undertakes to analyze local evangelical Protestant groups— as often as not, dispelling the myths of political conservatism long attributed to such entities. In the next two chapters, Ireland similarly challenges conventional notions of Afro-Brazilian spiritism as politically retreatist, demonstrating how some of these groups may be contributing to a new sense of citizenship. Next the author considers the challenges faced by the local Roman Catholic church as it attempts to promote its own brand of political activism through such mechanisms as the comunidades eclesiais de base. The concluding chapter critically reexamines the utility of the author’s grassroots approach compared to one stressing macro-level (that is, state) politics, and further elucidates previous arguments regarding the potential of religious-group membership and ideologies to affect political culture in Brazil.
The strengths of this book are many. To begin with, the author’s grassroots focus provides some balance to a literature that has tended to stress the importance of elite or institutional actors. Second, while the case study approach bears certain inherent limitations, the author is careful to enhance opportunities for generalization through systematic consideration of his own findings in light of a very broad range of previous research from all parts of Brazil. Finally, the author has been careful to place himself firmly in the context of his ethnographic descriptions. While this is somewhat unusual in social scientific research, it arouses a certain empathy in the reader and gives the book a friendly flavor that should enhance its appeal to audiences outside of academia.
Without question, this is a first-rate work. Not only does it make a sound contribution to the literature on religion and politics in Latin America, it is destined to spur further research on this and related topics.
