Ruy Llera Blanes
I am a Spanish anthropologist, currently working at the University of Bergen (UiB), Norway, as a Postdoctoral Researcher and at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon (ICS-UL), Portugal, where I received my PhD (2007).
My current research site is Angola, where I investigate religion, mobility (diasporas, transnationalism, the Atlantic), politics (leadership, charisma, repression, resistance), temporalities (historicity, memory, heritage, expectations), knowledge and gender.
I am currently the Project Leader of the Collaborative Research Project Currents of Faith, Places of History: Diasporas, Connections, Moral Circumscriptions and World-making in the Atlantic Space (CURRENTS), funded by the HERA consortium.
I am also co-Editor of the journal Advances in Research: Religion and Society, edited by Berghahn, and Associate Editor of the journal HAU – Journal of Ethnographic Theory.
ONGOING PROJECTS
As coordinator:
2013-2016: Currents of Faith, Places of History: Religious Diasporas, Connections, Moral Circumscriptions and World-Making in the Atlantic. Funded by HERA in the framework of the “Cultural Encounters” programme. Joint Research Programme including the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, the University of Bergen, the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the University of Oxford and the University of Utrecht. With David Berliner (ULB), Ramon Sarró (Oxford), Birgit Meyer (Utrecht), Diana Espírito Santo, Mattijs van de Port (UVA), Michel Doortmont (Groningen), Markus Balkenhol (Utrecht) and João Rickli (Utrecht). Website.
As team member:
2013-2015: Gender and Pentecostal Christianity. A Comparative Focus on Africa and Melanesia, with Annelin Eriksen (Principal Investigator), Michelle McCarthy (University of Bergen). Website.
2011-2014: The Politics of Hope: Churches and the Weaving of Society in Post-War Angola, with Ramon Sarró (ICS, Principal Investigator), Natália Zawiejksa (ICS) and Pedro Soares (ISCTE), and with advisors Clara Mafra (UERJ) and Fátima Viegas (UAN, Angola). Funded by FCT (Portugal).