Consumo religioso e do sagrado: “usos e táticas” de fiéis em relação aos produtos simbólicos da IURD.

Abstract

This dissertation focuses the consumption of religion in contemporaneity, through the analysis of consumption experiences of individuals who participate in the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus - IURD (Universal Church of the Kingdom of God). We used two theoretical perspectives: (1) the contribution of Bourdieu (1982;1999), according to which the religious field can be analyzed in terms of an economic market, with its commercialization of symbolic products; (2) the consumption theory as elaborated by Certeau (2002), with his concepts of uses, tatics and multiple readings carried out by religion consumers, which mean symbolic manipulation of cultic elements offered by the IURD. Regarding to the methodology, we used as data collection strategies the direct observation of IURD meetings and interviews with a non-randomic sample of the IURD’s members in Campina Grande, Paraíba, Brazil. Among the main outcomes of our work we point out the following: (1) the relationship of religions consumers with the sacred overwhelms the institutional borders; (2) the religions consumers act as creative readers of symbols and cultic elements offered by the IURD, showing a mix of passivity and non passivity in their consumption of products offered by the institution we analyzed.