Breath, Technology, and the Making of Community Cançáo Nova in Brazil

Abstract

In the early months of 1978 a youth group gathering for a “Seminar in the Spirit” in the small town of Areias, State of São Paulo, witnessed an extraordinary event. A priest named Padre Jonas Abib addressed the group by asking them: “which of you would be ready to leave everything behind, family, carrier, hobbies, in order to fulfil a mission God has placed in my heart?” The story goes that exactly 12 people raised their hands as they “were moved by an incredible force.” Then Padre Jonas turned to his followers and added three other things. First, the mission would involve working with communication. Second, it was especially addressed to youth and third, the community would be called Comunidade Cançâo Nova (New Song Community). This chapter is about the making of Canção Nova Community, a thriving global media network of Catholic Pentecostalism based in Brazil. Communities are often addressed in terms of a social construction around the management of symbols, events, or aspirations thatcreate a sense of bonding and belonging. Anthony Cohen’s “The Symbolic Construction of Community” (1975) is a particular case in point in which communities are understood as meaningful constructs that ground the cultural inscription of identity. In so arguing, Cohen implies the existence of a predetermined plane of reference against which construction happens. Benedict Anderson’s (1991) notion of “imagined communities” in turn offers us a much more flexible model for grasping the complex dynamics of community-making.

Inspiration is wind becoming breath, expiration is breath becoming wind. -Tim Ingold, Earth, Sky, Wind and Weather