Pentecostal Connections: Migration, Missionaries, Mobility and Media between Australia and Brazil

This project investigates a transnational religious field between Australia and Brazil, two peripheral countries where Pentecostalism developed separately but has developed connections over the past decade. This project investigates the ways in which the Australian Pentecostal megachurches Hillsong and C3 arrive in Brazil via digital media, travelling pastors, worship band tours, and returning Brazilian migrants and spiritual tourists (those who travel to participate in their conferences and study at Hillsong and C3 colleges), and how Brazilian churches in Australia hybridise their practices to attract Brazilian students.

I am presently writing a monograph titled The Hillsong Style: Young Brazilians Fashioning Cosmopolitan Identities drawing on this ethnographic research. I am interested in how Hillsong’s aesthetic style generates affect that drives young Brazilians to become fans of the megachurch and desire to travel to Australia to join the church, and how they rethink their religious affiliation when they return to Brazil.