Ritual, transnationalism and social remittances: two way travels of the Holy Ghost

Abstract

This article is centered on the travels of Holy Ghost festivals between the Azores and Azorean immigrant communities in the USA with a special focus on how ritual innovations introduced in California found their way back to the Azores. It argues that these innovations can be viewed as social remittances the success of which is dependent upon a particular regime of transnationalism, characterized a) by prominent links between particular locales in the host and home countries and b) by a specific political economy of migration, marked by the economic success of immigrants and by non-migrants’ capacity for emulation. It is thus a contribution to current debates on transnationalism and social remittances, especially those that have stressed their circular nature and the connections between transnationalism and the micro-economics of migration.