Subaltern cults and Brazilian classification systems under the influence of structuralism. A report of two texts by Fernando Giobellina

This paper explores the concept of subaltern religion developed by Fernando Giobellina about his studies of the cults of possession in Brazil. The reading of two of the texts used to think about the ranking systems that explain the forms of religious affiliation dominated by the alternation and complementarity. Giobellina illustrated through four different cults how people use various means to find solutions to these problems, both practical and interpretive schemes used as structurally equivalent. It does so guided by the vision that the French structuralist Levi-Strauss developed from ethnographic work in Brazil, but discussing and enriching some concepts which are now of great interest to Social Anthropology. PALABRAS CLAVE | KEYWORDS religiones subalternas | cultos de posesion | candomble | antropologia estructural | Brasil | subaltern religions | cults of possession | structural anthropology | Brazil