KBMSCACAR · Pentecostalism and Social media in Brazil: Faith and the digital production of gendered, racialized and class-based Pentecostal bodies

Pentecostalism and Social media in Brazil: Faith and the digital production of gendered, racialized and class-based Pentecostal bodies

Until now there has generally been a silence around the analysis of race and class in digital religion studies. The neo-Pentecostal Universal Church Kingdom of God (UCKG), was therefore an interesting case study for this research, as it has proved highly adept at producing itself as an icon of modern media technology, especially online and through social media. The aim of this project was therefore to demonstrate that there is a racialised, class-based and gendered process of ‘white acculturation’ occurring within Pentecostalism which has hitherto been ignored in both Sociological studies of Pentecostalism and Digital Religion Studies. Furthermore, the project aimed to demonstrate that the interplay between religion and media is therefore a significant locus for demonstrating gendered, class-based and racialised transformations of modern society and culture. The outcomes of the project are two journal articles currently out for peer-review and the researcher has successfully demonstrated the aims of the project. Her first article showed how Instagram is used by Pentecostal influencers as a visual vehicle to demonstrate an idealised performance of evangelical Christian masculinity and femininity, highlighting the construction of gendered religious subjectivities in digital spaces. The researcher used post-feminism as an analytical framework in order to explore the behaviours, ideals and biopolitical technologies that underpin the religious celebrity couple’s use of social media. The researcher found that followers are offered a postfeminist makeover paradigm in which technologies of self-surveillance and self-discipline are encouraged. The researcher also pointed to the white, racialised overtones and ‘whiteness’ of the images promoted towards the followers who are mainly black and mixed race, arguing that the church promotes a form of ‘whitening’ among its followers. In her second article currently under peer-review, the researcher demonstrated how ex-church members engage in intersectional feminist activism by using digital media (YouTube, Instagram) in order to dismantle the intersecting forms of oppression they experience. The researcher argues that digital media provides flexible spaces in which to insert critiques of religion from marginalised perspectives. The researcher demonstrates how those who have been marginalised find innovative opportunities for resistance through various online tactics, which spill over in into the real world, sometimes turning into concrete steps to combat spiritual abuse and help recover from religious trauma, but always with a focus on race.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union