Essay on the promise: circulation of devotees, words, graces and objects

Author(s)

Denise Moraes Pimenta

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2012-12-05

Examining board members

John Cowart Dawsey; Renata de Castro Menezes; Vagner Goncalves da Silva

• Advisor: John Cowart Dawsey

Abstract

The research to be presented focuses on the experience of devotion to Nossa Senhora Aparecida. Thus, since 2010, I do fieldwork in Aparecida do Norte, a city in São Paulo, with devotees from many places in the country, watching how they make relation with Santa Aparecida, making promises, pilgrimages. So, I divided my research into two parts, which are, however, interrelated. In the first part: an ethnography of a pilgrimage on foot (100km) from São José dos Campos until Aparecida which I followed. The second part deals with the movement of objects and words of devotion that have agency and transform worlds and heal people. In \"Essay on the promise\", I have Walter Benjamin, Victor Turner, Marcel Mauss like the guiding classical authors. I try to understand the promise far beyond a direct way of the formula: give, receive and give back.\" It means that I do reflections which make me think that between these transformers verbs and actions, there are winks, details, mosaics and many trinkets and numerous offal of things, so it was need to look for cracks, interstices, twilight points. So, I return my gaze to the promise while circulation, movement, passing and waiting. The promise or grace do not consist in an end in itself, what most absorbed me in the field were swirls, paths and movements and all circulations of devotees, objects, words of faith and sacrifice. The movement is the engine of promise, which only is established the extent that there are intimate relationships between Nossa Senhora Aparecida and his devotees. Thus, my work is about the experience of devotion, sensitive experience, with many photographs, music, storytellers, friends and the road, because the road crossing and the route is longer but more accurate for those who walk with faith. And it was on the road I started to envision what \"terrible good-spirits protect me\", \"I do not know almost nothing. But I suspect a lot\". But, be warned, this is an ethnography, and I \"believe and do not believe. Has thing and thing...\" (João Guimarães Rosa, \"Grande Sertão: Veredas\", Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2001). (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 10/04083-0 - One ethnography of drama: the rithual of cross
• Grantee: Denise Moraes Pimenta
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master