Enjeux et réseaux translocaux des « chirurgies parallèles » (Brésil, Philippines, Angleterre, Suisse)

The never achieved secularization characterizing contemporary societies conducted human sciences to question the sociologic predictions as to the religious decline in the modern world. The erosion of classic theism has not

engendered a « world disenchantment » and the religious has not vanished (disappeared from) the social ground; there is simply a « migration from the sacred ». A mutation of its expressivity added to this migration. Science

has become a powerful source of inspiration for the New Religious Movements (NMR) that, for most of them, possess a scientific-technical component. The « parallel surgeries » of this research project constitute by excellence its illustration.

Diffused and mediatised, these practises are realized by therapists in a variety of worldwide cultural contexts with main poles of reference in Brazil and the Philippines. Syncretic, they have recourse to the symbolic or effective use of a surgical arsenal invoking figures of the metaphysic pantheon as well. If science is within sacralised, the sacred is surgical reciprocally « scientifized ». In all evidence, this therapeutic formula reaches a large occidental public. Millions of citizens of occidental societies went to Brazil to undergo spiritual surgeries by João de Deus and by Alex Orbito in the Philippines. But, the therapists concerned also travel and initiate real therapeutic tours. Since two decades, Switzerland makes also part of the milestones of stop that punctuate their international circuit.

Literature in human science concerning this thematic is fragmentary and this research project separates from the approaches on the subject so far undertaken. Situationists, reductionists or sensationalists, the investigations lack of seeing the expression of a broader phenomena. The researches we conducted until today allow to state the following points: (1) If the denominations are used and the frames deployed are culturally impregnated, the logics of transnational action and of common ideologies rule all these practises; (2) The transnationality of these practises is not only due to the simple paradigm of the « therapeutic tourism » because the circulation of the

practitioners causes symbolic reconfigurations in the therapeutic landscape of the host country; (3) From the epistemological view point, the surgical gesture in its generic sense needs to be redefined outside of its biomedical frames. Surgery is not the prerogative of the Occident and investigations of last century report on the existence of so-called «primitive » extra-occidental surgery. Biosurgery, the parallel surgeries and the so-called « primitive » surgeries are part of a real « phenomenology of the surgical » that this research intends to reveal through the theoretical proposal of the paradigm of the « surgical pluralism ».

The problematic of these three research axes is inseparable from a multisituated study. The choice of the sites of inquiry is justified by the preponderance of their role within the networking of the parallel surgeries (England, Brazil, Philippines, Switzerland). The envisaged methodology shall combine the usual methods of data production in human sciences, testing an innovatory approach in the domain of ethnology as well: « the auto-confrontation », that consists to confront the social actors with the data of their own productions. The anthropological posture shall carefully avoid to enter in logic of discretion or to legitimate the observed practises. In lieu and place, it shall apprehend the emic categories as vernacular heuristic constructionsby pinpointing the symbolic, ethical and economical issues at work in the practises and the transnational networks deployed.