A influência de fatores institucionais e sociais sobre os níveis de mobilização e desmobilização religiosa: o caso da comunidade rural do Marinho (PB).

Abstract

In this Dissertation we discuss the influence exerted by social and institutional factors on the religious mobilization at the Community of Marinho, Paraiba, Brazil. We adopt as theoretical perspective the contributions of Weber and other authors on processes of secularization and the Religious Market Paradigm as formulated by Peter Berger and a group of American sociologists leaded by Rodney Stark, which purpose an analysis of the religious mobilization in terms of the fitting between the supply and the demand of religious models in a determined social space. The methodology we used included a questionnaire answered by an intentional sample of inhabitants of the Marinho Community; a set of interviews with local religious leaders and parishioners, besides the direct observation on the day-by-day life of the community and its religious celebrations. As main outcomes of our work we point out the following: (1) There is a discrepancy between the religious demand of parishioners and the religious products The Catholic Church and The Congregational Church offer in the Marinho's Community; (2) Institutional fragilities as low human capital - in terms of priests and pastors - can explain de process of religious demobilization regarding to Catholicism and Congregationalism at the community studied; (3) the increasing in the religious mobilization regarding to Pentecostalism in the Ville and Adjacencies of Marinho can be explained by the fitting between their religious messages and the need of inhabitants of the areas cited and as well by the constancy of their religious leaders presence in the individuals everyday; and (4) The stigmatisation resulted of the apartheid between the inhabits of the Street and those of the Ville can also helping in the understanding the relative religious demobilization related to traditional religiosities, whose temples and investments are held on the Street.