Reinventing Religions Syncretism and Transformation in Africa and the Americas

Once a central concept in anthropology, syncretism has recently re-emerged as a valuable tool for understanding the complex dynamics of ethnicity, postcolonialism and transnationalism. Building on a century-long tradition of scholarship, this important book formulates a broader view of the mixing and interpenetration of religious beliefs and practices, primarily from Africa and Europe, highlighting the ways in which religions and cultures on both sides of the Atlantic have been assimilated and innovatively changed. Divided into four sections, the book focuses on religious syncretism in Brazil, Cuba, and other parts of the Caribbean and West Africa. Greenfield and Droogers have brought together an array of outstanding international scholars whose rich and varied essays on specific geographical locales and customs comprise an innovative and comprehensive view of the transference of religious traditions and their continuity and reformulation on two continents.

Andre Droogers is professor of the anthropology of religion at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam Mundicarmo Maria Rocha Ferretti is a professor in the department of social sciences at State University of Maranhao in the city of Sao Luis, Brazil, where she teaches and conducts research on popular culture and Afro-Brazilian religion. Sergio Ferretti is adjunct professor of anthropology in the department of sociology and anthropology at the Federal University of Maranhao in the city of Sao Luis Sidney M. Greenfield (co-editor) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Morton Klass: Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Barnard College, Columbia University Roberto Motta is professor in the department of social sciences at the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil. Frank Salamone is professor of anthropology at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York Inger Sjorslev is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Anthropology of the University of Copenhagen. Ineke van Wetering, is affiliated with the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research Werner Zips is assistant professor at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology (Ethnology) of the University of Vienna