Looking through the literature concerning Afro-Brazilian cults, this paper deals with the issue of gender in some recent anthropological studies. Mostly, it raises questions for women in terms of the conflicts between family life and the integration of supernatural entities in their lives. There is also a discussion concerning the way an "objectivistic" anthropology could hamper the recognition of a religious construct which might elucidate some gender relations.
Possession; gender; family; trajectories; theories of representation