Stefania Capone has a Masters Degree in Social Anthropology from the Museu Nacional (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro , Brazil) and a Ph .D. in Ethnology from the University of Paris X-Nanterre ( France ). She is a researcher of the CNRS and teaches at the University of Paris X-Nanterre since 1997. She is the author of many works on candomblé , santería in United States and the transnationalisation of Afro-American religions. She is also the author of La quête de l'Afrique dans le candomblé . Pouvoir et tradition au Brésil (Paris, Karthala, 1999) and of Les Yoruba du Nouveau Monde. Religion, ethnicité et nationalisme noir aux Etats-Unis (forthcoming).

One of the most important recent developments in the history of Afro-American religions is their expansion across ethnic and national barriers. The spread of these religions has created networks of ritual kinship that now span national boundaries, giving rise to transnational communities of worshippers as, for instance, the batuque community in Argentine and Uruguay, or the santería community in Mexico and USA. Furthermore, these networks facilitate the circulation of values, symbols and practices between different modalities of Afro-American religions, helping to build the so-called “orisha religious community”. This paper will focus on the role of Shango rituals in the establishment of a pattern of tradition, produced in the prominent cult-houses of Bahia (Brazil) and exported to other regions as, for instance, the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area. The centrality of Shango rituals in three cult-houses of Bahia (Engenho Velho, Gantois and Axé Opô Afonjá), considered as the guardians of Yoruba tradition in Brazil, allows to include the candomblé into a wider community of worshippers connecting, for instance, Brazilian and Cuban practitioners, linked to a same origin – Old Oyo, the ancient capital of Yoruba empire. This common origin, highlighted by Lukumí attempts to unify the orisha religion in USA, underlines the political opposition between the Yoruba-centered and the Diaspora religious practices.