Religion and social metaphor: holly week as a memory and mise en scene of hierarchy in a city of Mariana-MG

• Main Author: Gracino Júnior, Paulo
• Publication Date: 2009
• Format: Article
• Language: por
• Source: Mediações - Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Download full: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/mediacoes/article/view/4531
• topic: City; Religious phenomenon; Social hierarchy; Cidade; Fenômeno religioso; Hierarquia social

In this work, we draw on Durkheim’s analytical perspective, which views religious phenomena both as a projection of social relations and as a source of norms for society. More specifically, we describe, through an ethnography of Holy Week, how the hierarchy and power struggles of the city of Mariana in Minas Gerais are projected onto the city’s religious life. For this purpose, we based our work on a wide range of sources, including fieldwork, documents and interviews. Through these sources we observed how, as a result of an intense process of urbanization that occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, the city experienced a striking socio-spatial polarization, involving, on the one hand, the population already established and, on the other, the newly arrived contingent. In our view, this polarization powerfully impacted the religious life of the city, with religion serving not only as a projection of that context, but as a privileged space for the acting out and updating of the power struggles and dilemmas of society.