Religiosidade popular: peregrinação e vínculos de solidariedade na Romaria Pirapora do Bom Jesus

Abstract

The traditional pilgrimage Pirapora do Bom Jesus, that has its origins in 1942, is one of the most important popular manifestations of Franco da Rocha city, in São Paulo. Having it as an empirical cut, this dissertation has the objective of understanding two aspects of popular faith: the first one consists in checking its importance to the process of political and social formation of Franco da Rocha, going against the idea that a pilgrimage is an obsolete religious tradition in front of this modernization process. The second objective about interpreting the pilgrimage as a peregrination ritual by which the pilgrims share a pack of traditional values, establishing a mutual identity, known as festeiros . The hypothesis that this pilgrimage has as social part condensing bonds of solidarity between the pilgrims, being interpreted here as depositary of cultural values , re-updated by the pilgrims for celebration occasions or peregrination rites. Having the objective of interpreting such elements, this dissertation privileges an interdisciplinary dialogue between Social Sciences and Religious Sciences, so that it s possible to make a lecture of the experience. Besides, it reaches to substantiate this discussion with historical datas.