Práticas de lazer em festas religiosas: um estudo da Festa do Divino de Diamantina, Minas Gerais

Abstract

The present study aimed in identifying how the participant’s leisure practices are configured during religious festivals, and having as study object the Divino Espírito Santo Festival from Diamantina, a city in the State of Minas Gerais countryside. The research was done through the systematic observation both of the city and of the festival itself, as well as through interviewing sixteen participants that had stablished a bond with the procession, and who were interviewed on the specific Sunday of the festival. The interviews were recorded and transcribed in full. Posteriorly the data were treated with qualitative content analysis, in order to elicit the core element of the text. Photographs were used to illustrate the work. With the attempt to explain such comprehension, it is presented interdisciplinary theoretical approaches that pervade religion theme, leisure theme, festival theme and city theme. A contextualization about Diamantina city, as well as its History, and its religious practice and leisure practice is also approached. The main results suggest that even though many people do not accept, because of their religious roots, the procession of Divino Espírito Santo Festival attracts several people that participate of it in search for matters referred to leisure. Although it is a religious festival, it provides to people a medley set of emotions and sentiments that almost always transcend the sacred matters, making a contribution to articulate issues pertaining the profane environment in that place. Such a profusion of meanings and values is what determines, or not, one’s leisure practices inside the present context.