Caseiras Pentecostais: mulheres felizes - trânsito religioso no Município de Vargem Grande Paulista

• Autor(a) principal: Matos, Teresinha Ferreira Leite
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/2017
• topic: mulheres na religião; pentecostalismo; trânsito religioso; São Paulo; Conversao; Mulheres e religiao; Pentecostalismo -- Vargem Grande Paulista, SP; women in religion; Pentecostalism; religious transit; São Paulo; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::TEOLOGIA

This dissertation presents the results of a research conducted in the Tijuco Preto neighborhood in the city of Vargem Grande Paulista, in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo. The primary data source consists of interviews with six women. All are converts from Catholicism to Pentecostalism, and all are housekeepers with additional duties on small local farms. They take care of these properties for the owners, that don´t live there. The work focuses on issues of religious transit in this small community. It addresses the following questions: Why did these women switch religions? What did they find in their new religion? What has altered in these "converted" women's lives, as a result of this religious transition? The number of Pentecostals churches built in this suburban area illustrates the more general prominence of religious transit. Tijuco Preto, for example, has Neo-pentecostal churches such as Rebirth in Christ (Renascer em Cristo). Findings indicate that these housekeepers motivations for transiting to a new religion were, in general, health problems, i.e., theirs and those of their children and husbands. The ailments concerned can be physical or psychological. Other factors contributing to the change of religion include their husbands' behavior and the perceived characteristics of the Catholic Church, which, according to the housekeepers, has its door always closed. Problems related to the infrastructure of suburban neighborhoods contributed to the isolation and suffering of these women. Tijuco Preto is divided in the middle by Estrada de Caucaia and is administrated by the cities of Cotia and Vargem Grande Paulista. This administrative division exacerbates the difficulties of the local population, especially in terms of medical assistance, transportation and public school facilities. From the perspective of these women who felt abandoned by the public government and by the Catholic Church, conversion from Catholicism to Pentecostalism ends their suffering. These women insist that dedication to the new religion, with its concomitant more orderly life (without the use of alcohol or tobacco) has transformed their lives: they now feel happy and victorious. With this life change of, the housekeepers have increased economic access to properties such as their own house or land or a car. The religion also helps them to confront without fear daily problems such as unemployment, lack of transportation and scarcity of medical assistance. The Pentecostal protection network fills gaps left by the government