Trânsitos, saberes e tradições, identidade, mercado religioso e transações de (re)conhecimento em um terreiro afro-religioso na cidade de João Pessoa

Abstract

This thesis aimed to understand how religious paths were established in front of the processes of transformation and change that have characterized the Brazilian Afro-religious field in last decades, in particular through the insertion of the Candomblé in the political arena and the effects of this insertion in projects of "reafricanization”. The effort was qualitative, aiming an ethnographic narrative capable of glimpsing the lines of escape, tension, the practices of enunciation and slips between senses triggered by priests and adepts in the way they understood their experiences. The research locus was the Ilê Asè Opô Omidewá, one of the most prestigious Candomblé community in João Pessoa, and led by Lúcia de Omidewá. In its process of aesthetic, political and ritual remission to Africa, Ilê Asè Opô Omidewá had produced an ambivalent linguistic economy to deal with material and symbolic aspects ordering the coherence of religious practices to the demands of the markets and clients that ensure their attractiveness and persistence. The research showed how particularly potent it was to discuss how ideas regarding authenticity and tradition embedded in the reafricanization process were polysemic and constituted in a semantic space marked by ambivalent and conflicting perceptions about transformation, conservation, reiteration, and identities.