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Articles by Ramon Sarro

This article discusses, from the case study of the Tokoist Church, the dialectic between processes of “presence” and “absence” in prophetic movements in Angola and the Angolan diaspora. It revisits classic Weberian theses on charisma and routinization of leadership, in order to explain, through the dialectics of presence/absence and generation/memory, the transformations experienced in this church in post-war Angola.

Papers by Ramon Sarro

Gesture and Power, 2015

In Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performa... more In Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performances of the BisiKongo people of the Lower Congo to show how their gestures, dances, and spirituality are critical in mobilizing social and political action. Conceiving of the body as the center of analysis, a catalyst for social action, and as a conduit for the social construction of reality, Covington-Ward focuses on specific flash points in the last ninety years of Congo's troubled history, when embodied performance was used to stake political claims, foster dissent, and enforce power.

Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick offered us a fascinating account of the world from an ‘Atlant... more Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick offered us a fascinating account of the world from an ‘Atlantic perspective’, producing what has recently been called an ‘Oceanic ordering’ (Long 2011), where the Atlantic appears as a fiction, an imaginary, and a perspective to understand the world, given to us by Ishmael, a whaler and seafarer who narrates a specific quest of search and discovery amidst the oceanic waves. Thus, the giant white whale has subsequently populated public imaginaries through multiple artistic refashionings. For instance, several decades later, Witold Gombrowicz would also offer us a Trans-Atlantyk narrative of European exile in America, in the wake of the Second World War. And throughout the twentieth century, other Atlantic imaginaries would ensue, within and beyond the realm of fiction, from the disastrous luxury of the Titanic to the mysterious Bermuda Triangle. But the Atlantic is more than an artistic assemblage of routes and itineraries; it is a space of creativ...

Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2012

In 2009, as the Pope visited Angola, the Portuguese Kimbanguists prepared themselves to receive S... more In 2009, as the Pope visited Angola, the Portuguese Kimbanguists prepared themselves to receive Simon Kimbangu Kiangani, the spiritual Chief of the Church (living in the Democratic Republic of Congo). According to Kimbanguists themselves, Lisbon is as marginal to Europe as Bethlehem was to the Roman Empire or N'kamba was to the Belgian Congo when, respectively, Jesus Christ and Simon Kimbangu were born. While they are not active proselytizers and do not use "reverse mission" arguments, Kimbanguists insist that Europe hosts a vast amount of "marginalized" people in need of a fresh spirituality. Analysing the Lisbon event, in this paper the authors discuss the dialectics between "centre" and "periphery" (N'kamba and Portugal) and suggest that the Kimbanguist religion must be simultaneously regarded as a mechanism by which Africans reaffirm a presence in the diaspora as well as being a means to orient efforts aimed at reinforcing their spiritual centre in Africa.

Textes en français et en catalanTexts in French and in CatalanInternational audienc

Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, 2016

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Anthropos Boletin De Informacion Y Documentacion, 1987

Etnografica, 2015

Este artigo discute, a partir do estudo de caso da Igreja Tocoísta, a dialética entre processos d... more Este artigo discute, a partir do estudo de caso da Igreja Tocoísta, a dialética entre processos de "presença" e "ausência" em movimentos proféticos em Angola e na diáspora angolana. Retoma algumas teses clássicas de Max Weber sobre carisma e rotinização da liderança para explicar, em função das dialéticas entre presença/ ausência e geração/memória, os processos de transformação ocorridos nesta igreja no contexto da Angola de pós-guerra. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: profetismo, Angola, tocoísmo, memória, geração, presença. Generation, presence and memory: the Tokoist Church in Angola  This article discusses, from the case study of the Tokoist Church, the dialectic between processes of "presence" and "absence" in prophetic movements in Angola and the Angolan diaspora. It revisits classic Weberian theses on charisma and routinization of leadership, in order to explain, through the dialectics of presence/absence and generation/memory, the transformations experienced in this church in postwar Angola.

Revista de Ciências Humanas, 2009

__________________________________________________ * The adventure as a cultural category: simmel... more __________________________________________________ * The adventure as a cultural category: simmelian notes on SubSaharian immigration 1 Quería agradecer los comentarios y sugerencias de algunas de las muchas personas con quien, en ciertos momentos, en seminarios y en cafés, discutí ideas presentadas en este trabajo:

Cadernos de Estudos Africanos, 2010

O trabalho Cadernos de Estudos Africanos está licenciado com uma Licença Creative Commons-Atribui... more O trabalho Cadernos de Estudos Africanos está licenciado com uma Licença Creative Commons-Atribuição-NãoComercial-CompartilhaIgual 4.0 Internacional.

Social Anthropology, 2009

Journal of Religion in Europe, 2011

THIS article discusses issues of moral agency and personhood among the Baga, a group of swamp ric... more THIS article discusses issues of moral agency and personhood among the Baga, a group of swamp rice farmers living on the coast of the Republic of Guinea (West Africa). In the first part of the article I shall show that it is difficult to translate the concept of 'the person', as we in the west understand it, straightforwardly into their language, or to translate their notions into our own languages. However, the intention of this article is not to show that cultural translations are impossible, but rather to stress that the human problems behind different cultural conceptions are very similar. In the second part of this article, therefore, I shall show that, although the Baga do not have a notion that translates directly into 'person', they do have a complex set of interrelated ideas about the internal constitution of the individual, its relation to the group, and the boundaries of the moral community. Many of

A Biblical text (Acts of the Apostles, 8 : 31–32) tells us that immediately after Pentecost, when... more A Biblical text (Acts of the Apostles, 8 : 31–32) tells us that immediately after Pentecost, when the Holy Ghost inspired Jesus' disciples to spread the good news, Philip, one of the apostles, saw the eunuch of the queen of the Ethiopians reading the Book of Isaiah . 'Do you understand what you are reading?' asked Philip . 'How can I, unless someone instructs me?' replied the eunuch . Then Philip carefully read the text with him and explained that what they were reading was in fact the announcement of the coming of Jesus . The eunuch not only understood then what he had been reading (and told), but also asked to be baptized with water. Something somewhat similar happened two thousand years later when a Russian woman we met told us she used to read the Bible a lot, but had not understood it . She only understood it when her boyfriend, a Jehovah's Witness, explained the meaning of the texts to her. Not only did she then 'understand' the Bible, but she a...