Taking seriously the network of cosmic links in African-matrix religions: interview with Marcio Goldman

We explore with Marcio Goldman some aspects that contribute to illustrating the cosmological principles of what is known as African-matrix religions in contemporary Brazilian academic literature. Through offerings to deities, we are introduced to an understanding of the dynamics of the forces that sustain the universe of Afro-Brazilian religions, as well as to a national dimension of some polemics about their rituals. In particular, by analyzing the arguments underlying the criticisms of animal offerings, we examine the problematic elements of contemporary conceptions and sensibilities in addressing the relationships between these practices and the environment, humans and non-humans, and humans and deities. Thus, we identify the limits and contradictions of the theoretical and conceptual assumptions from which these religious universes are usually approached. These perspectives, intentionally or inadvertently, reproduce simplistic and prejudiced views; more specifically, they reveal their ethnocentric and racist roots. Based on an ample research experience in an Angolan terreiro, as a modulation of a broader religious universe, Marcio Goldman presents a matrix of intelligibility that translates the complexity of a way of thinking that conceives the world as a great network that connects all that exists (humans, deities, animals, plants, etc.). Such a conception is present in the varied expressions or modulations of African-matrix religions in the Americas (candomblé, Santeria, voodoo, etc.). The offerings and the legal process that sought to outlaw them are helpful to think about worldviews that confront each other—in conditions of inequality—and pose a challenge to anthropology to carry out an exercise that can transmit a symmetrical and non-hierarchical dialogue as an expression of a respectful relationship with African-matrix religions. In turn, this demands from anthropological scientific work a deceleration that is able to create a language of communication based on a dialogue not built from a position of superiority.