Clara Saraiva – Comparatistas

Senior Researcher

Biographical note

Clara Saraiva is a social and cultural anthropologist, senior research fellow at the Centre for Comparative Studies (CEC), University of Lisbon, where she coordinates the research group CITCOM – Citizenship, Critical Cosmopolitanism, Modernity/ies, (Post)Colonialism. . She was a Visiting Professor at University of California Berkeley (2013); Brown University (2001-02 and 2008) and a Research Fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University (2001-2002 and 2008).

Specialized in the field of Anthropology of Religion and Ritual, she has researched the conceptions of death and funeral rituals in various contexts. He directed the FCT financed project “The invisibility of death among the migrant populations in Portugal”. Since 2004 he has been working on religious transnationalism and the expansion of Afro-Brazilian religions in Portugal, with field work in Portugal and Brazil. She was PI of the Portuguese team of the European project HERA “HERILIGION: The heritagization of religion and the sacralization of heritage in contemporary Europe”. She has published widely in various international journals and publishers (as Brill and Berghahn) on the subject of death, migrations, religions and transnational therapies.

She was (2013-2017) the vice-president of the Society for International Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), and is currently President of the Association of Portuguese Anthropology (APA), and a board member of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA).

Research main areas

Anthropology of Religion and Ritual;
Migrations, circulation of people;
Religious transnationalism and heritage;
Anthropology of health and emotions;
Africa and Brazil: colonialism and post-colonialism.

Recent publications

SARAIVA, Clara 2020 “Our Lady of Fatima in Brazil, and Iemanjá in Portugal. Afro-Brazilian Religions across the Atlantic” Atlantic perspectives. Places, Spiritis, and heritage eds. Ramon Sarró, Ruy Blanes & Markus Balkenhol, New York, Oxford, Berghahn. ISBN 978-1-78920-483-4
ISBN 978-3-643-91110-0
SARAIVA, Clara, Havik. José e MAPRIL, José (eds) 2018 Death on the Move. Managing Narratives, Silences and constraints in a Transnational perspective, London, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
SARAIVA, Clara, FRANGELLA, Simone e RODRIGUES, Irene (orgs) 2017 Movimentos, Espíritos e Rituais. Gestões da Morte em Cenários Transnacionais, Lisboa, Imprensa de Ciências Sociais.SARAIVA, Clara 2019 “Ancestors and death: from west Africa to Southwest Europe”, Death Across Cultures, (Science Across Cultures: The History of Non-Western Science Series) eds. Helaine Selin , Robert M. Rakoff, Switzerland AG, Springer Nature.
SARAIVA, Clara, ROUSSOU, Eugenia and POVEDAK, Istvan (eds.) 2019 Expressions of Religion. Ethnography, performance and the Senses, Berlin, Lit-Verlag.
SARAIVA, Clara, MARGRY, Peter Jan, POVEDAK, Kinga, OBADIA, Lionel e MAPRIL,José (orgs) 2016 Experiencing religion: new approaches towards personal religiosity, Berlin, Lit-Verlag.
SARAIVA, Clara 2016 “Orixás across the Atlantic. The diaspora of Afro-Brazilian Religions in Europe” The Handbook of Contemporary Brazilian Religions in Brazil, ed. by Bettina Schmidt and Stephen Engler, London, Brill.
SARAIVA, Clara. 2016. “Circulating spirits and dead bodies: Funerary transnationalism among immigrants from Guinea Bissau in Portugal”. African Diaspora 9 (1/2):1-16.
SARAIVA, Clara e MAPRIL, José 2014 “Scenarios of death in contexts of mobility: Guineans and Bangladeshi in Lisbon in Ricarda Vidal and Maria José Blanco , (eds.) The Carnival of Death, Oxford, Berhghan Books.
SARAIVA, Clara 2013 “Pretos-velhos across the Atlantic—Afro-Brazilian cults in Portugal”, in Manuel Vasquez e Cristina Rocha (eds.) The diaspora of Brazilian Religions. London, Brill, pp 197-222.
SARAIVA, Clara 2013 “Blood, sacrifices and religious freedom: Afro-Brazilian associations in Portugal” in José Mapril , Ruy Blanes (eds.) Sites and Politics of Religious Diversity in Southern Europe. The Best of all Gods, International Studies in Religion and Society series, Leiden, Brill , pp 129-154.
SARAIVA, Clara; MAPRIL, José 2012 « Le lieu de la « bonne mort » pour les migrants guinéens et bangladais au Portugal », Revue Europeéne des migrations internationales (REMI) 28 (3) : 51-70.
SARAIVA, Clara 2008 “Transnational Migrants and Transnational Spirits: An African religion in Lisbon”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Special issue ed. Grillo, R.; Mazzucato, V. 34 (2) March 2008: 253-270.

Some publications are available in the repository of the University of Lisbon.

Citizenship, Migration, Heritage and Cosmopolitanism / CITCOM

HERILIGION: The Heritagization of Religion and the Sacralization of Heritage in Contemporary Europe