ROMARIA DO BOM JESUS DA LAPA: REPRODUÇÃO SOCIAL DA FAMÍLIA E IDENTIDADE DE GÊNERO FEMININA.

Abstract

This thesis is a study about women in the Pilgrimage of Bom Jesus da Lapa, emphasizing gender relations, analyzing the space of the pilgrimage as a social reproduction of the ideology of the patriarchal family and of the female gender identity. The research environment is the Pilgrimage of Bom Jesus da Lapa, which has been held for 323 years in that city, located in the western region of Bahia. The subjects in the research are pilgrim women who fall in an age group of between 50 and 70 years-old and have been participating in the Pilgrimage for more than five consecutive years; they are from five Brazilian states (Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Espírito Santo and Goiás) that report a higher rate of participation in this religious event. We utilized as our research methodology the bibliographical, qualitative, fieldwork and documentary research, and the collection of data; our technique was participant observation and semi-structured interviews. This thesis has as its general objective to analyze how to articulate, within the area of popular Catholicism, and more particularly in the Pilgrimage of Bom Jesus da Lapa, sociocultural changes occurring in society, gender relations and the dynamics of Catholicism. Emphasis will be given to the impacts of such articulation on the conceptualization of gender relations, to the core of the pilgrimage itself and beyond, to the everyday relationships of the women concerned; to the form of the inclusion of women in this context, how the pilgrim women are situated (are positioned), in relation to socio-cultural changes in progress, how pilgrim women understand the space of the pilgrimage, in relation to their daily domestic life, to the challenges faced by these subjects, in the sense that, at times, they approach or move away from gender identity, derived from patriarchal society, where the submission of women to men is a key feature. Based on the results of the interviews of the pilgrim women and on the theoretical framework as references, we concluded that the Pilgrimage of Bom Jesus da Lapa is a space for the social reproduction of the family and of the female gender identity, where a contrast is observed in the reframing of the role of and in the profile of the pilgrim women of Bom Jesus da Lapa, alternating between permanence and transformation of the gender identity arising from patriarchy.