Priscilla Garica
Post Doctoral Research Associate
pp400@wesley.cam.ac.uk

Dr Priscilla Garcia joined Wesley House in 2024 as a Post-doctoral Research Associate in the Centre for Faith in Public Life. Her research examines the relationship between Christian religious values, ethics, and politics, focusing on the different dimensions of ‘political engagement’ and their relation to the constitution of the individual and collective religious and political self, expressed in the church and in society. Conducting 18 months of fieldwork among Evangelical Christians from a conservative megachurch in Brazil, Dr Garcia’s post-doctoral research explores the presence of conservative Christians in politics and the return of Christian nationalism and conservativism to the public square. She is also interested in the articulations between religious values and political ritual, cultural change, gender, and the use of language in the church and in the public sphere. Her interdisciplinary research engages social anthropology with sociology of religion, philosophy, interfaith studies and theology.

Dr Garcia received her PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, San Diego (2014). Over the years, she has held various teaching appointments at different universities in Brazil (UFOP, UFBA, 2007-2009), the United States (UCSD, 2012-2015), and the U.K. (University of Cambridge 2019-2020; 2022-2023), and a postdoctoral position in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge (2022-23).

Dr Garcia is also a member of Clare Hall, Cambridge and an affiliated researcher in the Department of Social Anthropology, at the University of Cambridge.