De devoção popular a turismo religioso: persistências e transformações do culto a Nossa Senhora Aparecida

Abstract

The main concern of this study was to understand the persistence and transformation of the devotion to Our Lady of Aparecida. Therefore, it was important not only to understand its symbolic, economic and social, dimensions as well as to understand their interfaces. Therefore, we sought to explain the origins, settlement and emancipation of the municipality, the emergence and expansion of the devotion to Our Lady of Aparecida, up to receiving the title of Patron of Brazil, disputes over power, legitimacy and ownership of the devotion by the Church and the government; the use of religious tourism in the development of the city, its economic dimension and centralization of resources, the symbolic dimension of she devotion and of the Church discourse against devotional Catholicism and the role of the devotee, tourist and pilgrim. The study was involved a review of literature and primary sources in the archives of the natural shame memo sand Documentation Center, field research, direct observation and recorded interviews with the regional tourism officials, Catholic leaders involved with tourism and devotees living in the city. The results showed the transformation of traditional forms of devotion from the segmentation of the market of tourist activities, a process that is a new synthesis of contemporary social practices. We conclude that there is a strong relationship in Aparecida between tourism and religion, the Church seeing was the institution that officiated the devotion to Our Lady and in the final years of the nineteenth century developed actions known as Romanization expanding its symbolic, economic and social power