Between trance and gender transition: politics of transformation among Afro-religious trans people

• Grant number: 24/17854-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2025
• End date: December 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Anthropology - Anthropology of Afro-Brazilian Populations
• Principal Investigator: Vagner Gonçalves da Silva
• Grantee: Ava Cruz Marchese
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the relationships between Afro-religious groups and transgender groups, with the goal of exploring how these dynamics contribute to an ethnographic theorization of bodily transformation. To achieve this, it analyzes the intersections between Afro-Brazilian ritual processes, notably trance and initiation, and gender transition processes, as well as sexual experiences. The central objective is to understand how transgender individuals incorporate knowledge and practices from Afro-religious terreiros into their own transition processes, and to investigate how these same individuals, as social agents, adapt and transform these knowledges and practices within religious spaces. To encompass this complexity, the research focuses on three main groups: (I) transgender Afro-religious individuals living in the metropolitan region of São Paulo; (II) cisgender Afro-religious leaders and other mediators related to the issue; (III) transgender Afro-religious leaders and trans-activist political organizers within the terreiro context. This research seeks to produce a reflection on the relationships established between these groups, at times converging, at times conflicting, within the uniqueness of questions they raise around anthropological debates concerning the body, personhood, and tradition. (AU)