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Between shame and sanctification: patriarchy and its transformation in Sicilian Pentecostalism
Author(s) -
CUCCHIARI SALVATORE
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1990.17.4.02a00050
Subject(s) - patriarchy , hegemony , shame , sociology , sanctification , sicilian , order (exchange) , gender studies , law , philosophy , political science , theology , economics , finance , politics , linguistics
This article examines the ways in which Sicilian Pentecostals enact a gender system in response to a perceived crisis in the prevailing gender order, an order I interpret, following Kenelm Burridge, as a system of “redemption,” conferring a culturally specific form of “integrity.” Pentecostalism, then, is a gender‐system‐in‐the‐making, a new calculus of human worth, that combines new structures with aspects of the failing hegemonic system. The result is a more complex, ambiguous patriarchy, one that may be less viable than the hegemonic system, enabling believing women to transcend some of the gender constraints of the prevailing system.