Encontro entre as práticas Afonjá e Sergipe: o papel do espaço na estabilização do Ilé Àse Òpó Osogunlade

Abstract

This thesis investigates the foundation and establishment of a Ketu terreiro, Ilé Àse Òpó Osogunalde, in the city of São Cristóvão in Sergipe. The terreiro was founded and led by Reginaldo Daniel Flores, a member of the Daniel de Paula family, which for two-hundred years, has been one of the families that continued the Nigerian egúgún (ancestral) religion on the island of Itaparica, Bahia. Furthermore, the father of the saint (pai de santo) of this terreiro, spent the greater part of his childhood under the care of mother Mistress, Oxum Muiwá, third yalorixá of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá, a centuries-old terreiro located in São Gonçalo do retiro, in Salvador. Based on interviews and ethnographic research, this work explores alternative forms of spatial perception. In this way, we sought to consider the political implications of establishing a terreiro, investigating what territorial types the movement of establishment connects, disconnects, and which remain latent as possible allies. To this end, the study mainly applied the work of two authors: the geographer Doreen Massey and the anthropologist Tim Ingold. We argue that these displacements, arrivals and territorial establishments do not occur in some already preestablished world, but rather, result from the encounters instigated by this movement. As such, we seek to emphasize the multiplicities of practices, afro-religious or not, that establish and transform the quality of place.