(In)Vissible Cohexistences Among Afro-Caribbean, Divine and Human Bodies

In the village of Old Bank (located on the Atlantic coast of Panama), experiences and narratives about relatives, spirits and wizards interact with two Christian doctrines (Methodist and Adventist), both present in the village for over a hundred years and both linked to the same historic process by which the Afro-Caribbean ancestors of the local population first came to Old Bank. Based on my 14-month ethnographic research, I investigate the way locals relate to God: this agency that, although (in)visible, is strongly present in their lives, including their bodies. Focusing on people who are baptized in one of the local churches, I argue that they produced an intentional transformation in their lives and bodies, altering the way they relate to spirits, wizards and relatives - whose presence is also intense in local life and bodies, especially during the funeral rituals called nain nait. In this context, I reflect on the native concepts of body and personhood, investigating how the coexistence between (non)human, (im)material, (in)visible agencies and its contribution to anthropological debates about kinship, materiality, agency and religion in the Caribbean.