EMBODIMENT, RITUAL PRACTICES, AND COSMOPOLITICS OF THE POTIGUARA OF PARAÍBA

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22456/1982-6524.140272

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of ritual practices, embodiment, and politics within the Potiguara people of Paraíba, Brazil. Through ethnographic research, we explore ceremonial and ritual practices, with a particular focus on Catholic religious festivals and the toré ritual, which are approached through the lens of cosmology and embodiment. Our reflections concentrate on the relationships between toré and jurema and their agency within the sphere of cosmopolitics, and their interactions with plants and the environment. The complex ritual ceremony is integral to the Potiguara's construction of existence and life, characterized by the multiplicity of divergent worlds expressed through human and other-than-human relationalities, the integration of ethnic mobilization processes and demonstration of indigeneity, the transformations facilitated by ritual knowledge and practices, and the territory where life unfolds and becomes a “world”.

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Author Biography

José Glebson Vieira, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte

He holds a degree in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Paraíba (1999), a master's degree in Social Anthropology from the Federal University of Paraná (2001), a doctorate in Social Anthropology from the University of São Paulo (2010), and a postdoctoral degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Brasília (2023). He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology (DAN) and the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology (PPGAS) at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), supervising dissertations and theses in the research lines: Politics, rights, and ethnicity; Memory, local knowledge, religiosity, rituals. He conducts research with the Potiguara people of Paraíba on indigenous politics, overlay of indigenous land with environmental preservation area and fishing, as well as on ethnic emergence and territoriality in Rio Grande do Norte from the indigenous communities of Caboclos (Açu/RN) and Potiguara of Sagi Trabanda and Sagi Jacu (Baía Formosa/RN). He has experience in anthropology, with emphasis on indigenous ethnology, political anthropology, and anthropology of Afro-Brazilian populations, working on the following themes: Mobilizations, ethnic dynamics, and ethnogenesis; Shamanism, cosmology, corporeality, and notion of person; Indigenous chiefs and leaders; Territoriality, landscape, and environment; Indigenous land demarcation; Socio-environmental conflicts; Memory and orality among indigenous and quilombola groups; Education and ethnic-racial diversity; Indigenous School Education. He is currently a collaborating researcher in the Graduate Program in Social Anthropology at the University of Brasília.

Published

2025-01-07

How to Cite

VIEIRA, José Glebson. EMBODIMENT, RITUAL PRACTICES, AND COSMOPOLITICS OF THE POTIGUARA OF PARAÍBA. Espaço Ameríndio, Porto Alegre, v. 18, n. 3, p. 116–149, 2025. DOI: 10.22456/1982-6524.140272. Disponível em: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/EspacoAmerindio/article/view/140272. Acesso em: 28 aug. 2025.

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ARTICLES