Abstract

MELLO, Marcelo Moura. Spiritual entities: materializations, histories, and the index of their presences. Etnográfica [online]. 2016, vol.20, n.1, pp.211-225. ISSN 0873-6561.

The review suggests some appropriations of two recently edited volumes - The Social Life of Spirits (2014) e Spirited Things: The Work of “Possession” in Black Atlantic Religions (2014) - focusing on the central debates around and through which the effects, the agency and the presence of spiritual entities are thought in the chapters of both books. In the discussion of spiritual entities, three subjects are highlighted: materiality, history, and the operation of semiotics regimes through which indexes of spiritual presences are thought, conceptualized and defined by humans.

Keywords : spirits; materiality; history; possession.

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