Programme

Manuela Meireles (CES): "Sacred Food: ritualistic uses and community practices involving food in Umbandas".
Abstract: Food is part of culture and there are several intertwines between culinary traditions and religiosities. In Umbanda religious practices it is no different. There are several crossings of food within the different strands of Umbanda; not only in specific ritualistic aspects, but also, within a broad understanding of religion (Spickard, 2017), of its aspects of creating community ties.
It is through the belief in the sharing of energies of men with other beings, whether herbs, animals, stones, rivers, spirits and divinities, that food obtains a fundamental role of being one of those elements that enables the exchange between the visible and the invisible world (Simas, 2019, 2021). In the Umbandas, there are the so-called “Comidas de Santo”, ritualistic preparations of food that carry the energy of that specific Orixá to whom one wants to offer it, in order to rebalance the energy of its practitioners.

But the use of the food is not restricted to this: it is used for spiritual cleansing, offerings with requests or thanks to divinities and spirits, as energisers in the manifestations of the spirits through mediumistic trance and also in the bonds between the community. It is at the feasts dedicated to Ogum that the traditional feijoadas are served by the terreiros in Rio de Janeiro, it is in the distribution of little bags with sweets of São Cosme and Damião that the patron saints of children in September are honoured and it is between snacks with beer that many parties for Malandragem take place in the carioca terreiros.

Starting from the notion of religion as culture, and the latter as a production in constant movement (Hall, 1996; 2016; Gilroy, 2001), it should be said that, with the transnationalization of these practices to Portugal, it is possible to perceive various adaptations in the new territory (Pordeus, 2006; 2009; Guillot, 2010; 2012). With the start of the fieldwork in Umbanda terreiros in Portugal, it will also be possible to discuss how the ritualistic and practices related to food were re-signified and adapted in the Portuguese context.

Lior Zalis (CES): "Mouths that eat and other digestive systems: the materialities of food in political actions".
Abstract: The question of food is directly linked to the concept of vitality. Not only for its function of providing energy to a body, but in the multiplicity of energies and bodies that it keeps alive. There are many ways of giving food and many other ways of eating. If in its physiological dimension metabolizing food is to sustain a body, the question of who eats and how they eat guides a reflection on alternative metabolisms and other digestive systems. To understand the plurality of food materiality is therefore to expand the epistemological dimension of the forms of digestion. In the multiplicity of mouths that eat, food acquires an elastic meaning. Its heterogeneous materiality overflows the limits of its nutritional properties to dive into the multiple ways of living. In the field of spiritual and religious practices we can verify this onto-epistemological twisting of food materiality: it serves not only to be ingested, but also as an enabler of socio-spiritual processes.

In this presentation I intend to explore the idea of other digestive systems through the relationship between food and political action. When food is used not only for human but also non-human digestion, it becomes a tactical element or agential resource of sociabilities among multiple beings. "Feeding" is a way to praise, worship, ask and care for other entities, beings and deities within different cultures. The “despachos”, offerings, sacrifices and other forms of “feeding” constitute an interesting tactical architecture for rethinking the social role of food. Concepts such as “epistemological ebó” (Simas and Rufino, 2018; 2019; Rufino, 2019) and despachos (de la Cadena, 2010) take food within different processes of reenchanting forms of knowledge. If certain forms of dynamisations of vital energies are set in motion on account of certain rituals and practices with food, a heterogeneous materiality appears which, consequently, demands a specific digestion. I intend, therefore, to reflect on these different materialities and explore the idea of a plurality of digestive systems and alternative forms of metabolisms, specifically in those implied in a relationship with non-humans.