Love Therapy in Brazil and France: analyzing beliefs, practices and discourses related to affective-sexual love in the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God

• Grant number: 24/10855-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Maria Aparecida Chaves Jardim
• Grantee: Thaís Cristina Caetano de Souza
• Supervisor: Frederic Lebaron
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université Paris-Saclay, France
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/11491-4 - The social construction of the love market: the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus visited by the economic sociology of markets, BP.DR

Abstract

From a modest rented hall to monumental temples spread across several Brazilian and foreign cities, The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) has consolidated itself with a certain importance in the Brazilian and international religious field. The Universal Church's transnationalization project arrived in France in 1992, offering various religious services, including Love Therapy. In this way, we seek to compare the beliefs and practices related to love produced by IURD in Brazil and France, through Love Therapy. The project includes visits to Universal's headquarters in Paris and fieldwork in French Love Therapy. Parallel to this, we will delve deeper into Bourdiesian discourse analysis research techniques via the use of software and social trajectory analysis and prosopography, under the supervision of Fédéric Lebaron, since, in the PhD project in Brazil, we analyzed the trajectory of the IURD's religious leaders, such as Bishop Edir Macedo, founder of the church, and Renato and Cristiane Cardoso, engaged agents and symbolic producers of Love Therapy, in addition to the Cardoso couple's discourse on marital life in their services and lectures, courses paid and books produced. In this way, the present project aims at empirical and methodological gains for doctoral research carried out in Brazil.