Gods on the move: The mediatisation of Vodou

Abstract

Recently, mediatisation has emerged as a theory seeking to account for the seemingly pervasive influence of media on social, cultural and religious practices and institutions. Mediatisation theory, as proposed by Stig Hjarvard, suggests that mediatisation is a modern Western process whereby the media usurps social activities once the domain of institutional religion. Such a theory, focusing on changes that media brings to institutional religions with a visible presence in the public sphere of the nation state, does not seem to be intended for an analysis of non-institutional or unofficial religions that have limited visibility in the public sphere. And yet, such religions also seem to be changing as they intersect with forms of new and mass media. This article interrogates the applicability of mediatisation theory to Haitian Vodou (a non-institutional religion). It does so by exploring the intersection of Vodou with media practices and representations (focusing on televisual and cinematic representations), examining the public visibility of the religion and exploring what media representations (both popular and documentary) can mean for religious practitioners. Such an analysis questions the technological determinism, ethnocentrism and myths of secular modernity that threaten to underpin mediatisation theory.

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