Clayton da Silva Guerreiro

Visiting Researcher Religious Studies,Utrecht University

Year of birth: 1982

Current position: PhD Candidate in Social Sciences, University of Campinas

Personal Profile:

I received my degree in History in the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO) and my Master’s degree in Social Sciences in the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP). I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Campinas with a grant from the São Paulo Foundation for Research Support – FAPESP (2017/24663-0).

In my master’s research, I focused on Brazilian Pentecostalism and its relation with Afro-Brazilian religions in Rio de Janeiro. Since 2017, I have been researching the religious field of Maputo, capital of Mozambique. In dialogue with urban anthropology and the anthropology of religion, I did my fieldwork in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (that came to Mozambique from Brazil) and so-called Zionist churches.

As part of the Religious Matters Project my current research aims to investigate the individual and collective experiences of people related to these churches, focusing on the materiality involved in the rituals of spiritual treatment performed spiritual therapists, like bishops, pastors and prophets. In dealing with the experiences of subjects in a post-colonial context, I understand religious practices as being inseparable from materiality. I assume that the observation of such experiences allows us to analyze various social processes, such as competition in the religious field and aesthetic transformations of the rituals in some Pentecostal and African Independent or ‘Zionist’ churches.

Zionist churches and the Universal Church have offered treatments against witchcraft and spirits and compete with tinyanga (traditional doctors). And yet, at the same time it is clear that Zionist and traditional  practices and rituals are intertwined. For this reason, I argue, the struggle of pastors and prophets against the results in the circulation of spirits and practices, rather than their disappearance. Related to these flows,  there occur aesthetic transformations that shape the spaces, bodies and ritual practices. In my research I investigate these transformations by focusing on the senses – sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch – in individual and collective experiences of believers and spiritual therapists.

Recent scholarly papers/books:

GUERREIRO, Clayton. “Hoje à noite vai ter reteté, pô!”: evidências de conflitos cotidianos em rituais pentecostais. DEBATES DO NER, v. 2, p. 123-154, 2019.

GUERREIRO, Clayton. Do circo à “macumba” pentecostal: sobre categorias acusatórias e justificações. In: Melvina Araújo; Christina Vital da cunha. (Orgs.). Religião e conflito. 1ed.CuritibA: Prismas, v. 1, p. 195-216, 2016.

GUERREIRO, Clayton. Os protestos dos protestantes: Produção de legitimidade e performances da ONG Rio de Paz. Ponto.Urbe (USP), v. 18, p. 2-18, 2016.

GUERREIRO, Clayton. “Sofredores do presente, libertos no futuro”: uma análise da Missão Portas Abertas a partir de Luc Boltanski. Pensata Revista dos Alunos do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais da UNIFESP, v. 4, p. 115-134, 2015.

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