A Christian Politics of Friendship on a Brazilian Frontier

Bibliographic Data

ID2142633
AuthorsA Lebner (0000-0003-0230-2873, University of Toronto, corresponding author), Ashley B Lebner
Year2012
Volume77
Issue4
Pages496-517
Publication date2012-12-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnos (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1844 • E-ISSN: 1469-588X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00141844.2011.610512
OpenAlexW2013477443
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited46

This paper explores ethnography of municipal elections, promise-making and miracles to show how Christians problematise both friendship and politics on a settler frontier in Brazilian Amazonia. Bringing these themes together generates new anthropological perspectives on each, while complementing Derrida's critique of Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction - his definition of the political. Yet the main ethnographic point complicates the argument that both Schmitt and Brazilianist anthropologists critiquing clientelism have made: that Christianity reflects and legitimises the political order. In contrast, I show how the problem of friendship, produced through Christian concerns with the constancy of presence, legitimises and deligitimises politics at once. The overarching message is that politics, friendship (sociality) and Christianity - usually kept analytically separate - are uniquely clarified where they intersect, as they pass through persons, who foreground and background these domains themselves

Argument (complex analysis · Christianity · Clientelism · Ethnography · Friendship · Frontier · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociality · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society in Latin America · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies · Religious Studies

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