JEFF GONZALEZ

JEFF GONZALEZ’s teaching and research interests exist primarily in the areas of African and African diasporic religions, with a particular focus on Cuba, Brazil, and Nigeria. His research looks at how diasporic traditions expand, interact, and adjust to new social and cultural environments, and how religion and culture meld and define a community’s identity and social space. The role of women in diasporic traditions is central to his research. Gonzalez’s theoretical background is interdisciplinary integration of the works of scholars such as French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu with the concept of capital, English sociologist Anthony Giddens with the analysis of reflexivity, and Cuban anthropologist and ethnomusicologist Fernando Ortiz’s framework on transculturation. Since 2016 he has traveled to Western Nigeria, where he is studying the impact of renewed interest in Yoruba orisha tradition and how this continues to evolve into new forms of religious pilgrimage and tourism. Paired with that is a focus on how technology plays a role in integrating and interconnecting various diversely located communities.