Mídia e peregrinação: as representações imagéticas da devoção aos flagelados da seca na Caminhada das Almas em Senador Pompeu-CE

Abstract

This research aims to investigate, understand and discuss the intersections between media, pilgrimage and the image representations of devotion to those affected by the drought at Caminhada das Almas in Senador Pompeu-CE. Although the term media, in common sense, often refers to technological devices and means of mass communication, this research particularly we are specifically focus in the media classification proposed by German journalist and researcher Harry Pross and the image scholar Hans Belting’s studies, that recovers the etymology of the term and understands media as a mean, a vehicle, not necessarily linked to mass media. The work is divided into three chapters. Initially, we historically contextualize the Concentration Camps in Ceará and the Drought Walk, also called Caminhada das Almas (Walk of Souls). Afterwards, we approach theoretically concepts such as ritual, pilgrimage, rites of passage, divine, profane, endogenous and exogenous images and popular devotion; and, in the last chapter, we focus on the relationship between pilgrims and devotion to the Santas Almas da Barragem, with special attention to body performativity. The analysis adds to the descriptions and experiences along the route of the pilgrimage on site (in November 2023). Concepts and categories such as ritual, pilgrimage, rites of passage, myth, divine, profane, devotion and endogenous images are discussed from authors such as Van Gennep, Norval Baitello Junior, Hans Belting, Malena Contrera, Mircea Eliade, Rudolf Otto and Victor Turner.