Cartografias de Globalização Religiosa: Imaginários, (I)Mobilidades, Materialidades e Assimetrias de Poder

In this article I turn my attention to three major ethnographic projects that I have conducted throughout my academic career. In almost three decades of research, I have looked at the circulation of different religions between different countries: firstly, Zen Buddhism flows between Japan and Brazil, then alternative medicine flows from Brazil and, finally, Pentecostalism flows between Australia and Brazil. Drawing on these studies, I reflect on how religion moves between nation states and what restricts or impedes its movement. I argue that religious flows are impacted by four major factors: 1) imaginaries constructed from power asymmetries between nation states; 2) religious infrastructures that intersect and influence each other (imagination, mobility, materialities/aesthetics and media); 3) flows that are multipolar and multidirectional; 4) flows that are multiscalar. Finally, I summarise my analytical approach to religious transnationalisation in this way: I work with a multipolar, multidirectional and multiscalar cartography of religious globalisation influenced by power inequalities.