Entre chegadas e partidas: dinâmicas das romarias em Juazeiro do Norte

Abstract

This thesis brings into focus devotion and diversion as seen in pilgrimages in the current century, taking into consideration the process related to the hierarchy of meanings. Beginning with interacting contexts found at pilgrimage scenario in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, this study questions perspective for continuity and change within pilgrimage practices. Among possibilities related to analysis of religious movements by the Social Sciences, notions about tourism and festivity are taken as models for interpretation of pilgrimages attaching them to narratives of experiences by participants. There is a concern in this work to demonstrate how relations among place, events and people involved in the pilgrimages are bound into indissociable elements for apprehension of the phenomenon. The bulk of representations that circulate among participants of the pilgrimage is presented by means of data collected from interviews, questionings and observations. Analysis encompasses identification of practices taken as legitimate values for pilgrimages, taking into consideration relations among the founding myth, the city and the pilgrims, and elements that point to new meanings. The upshot demonstrates that in spite of accumulating through the years other meanings besides the religious one, pilgrimages maintain their major remissive aspect, namely, relating themselves to the institution of the sacred which differentiate them from other formal symbolic repertoires to which participants turn when they desire to demarcate internal limits of belonging. Within the universe of individuals who qualify as pilgrims of Juazeiro do Norte the research points to aspects that indicate change and continuity encompassing traditional practices of pilgrimages. Besides, there is formation of different spaces in order to serve a demand of sociability and diversion among participants and their contribution to re-signify pilgrimages.