Chronotopic Realignments and the Shifting Semiotics and Politics of Visibility in Brazilian Candomblé Activism

This article examines the shifting semiotics and politics of visibility in Brazilian Candomblé activism in the late 2000s in the city of Salvador. It analyses how the use of publicly salient discourses and signs of peace and antiviolence activism by activists from the African diasporic religion Candomblé reconfigured the religion’s practitioners public image from that of politically passive practitioners of “black magic” and self-sacrificing “black mothers” to that of politically active peace and antiviolence activists. I argue that this transformation was effected by a realignment of the general public’s chronotopic orientation toward the religion and its practitioners from a chronotope of concealment to one of political visibility. This shift in chronotopic orientation not only aligned Candomblé practitioners with the social persona of the politically engaged peace activist but also produced a new social persona of a religiously motivated “black mother of peace.”