Fé, festas e economia popular: implicações da pandemia de COVID-19 sobre as celebrações do Círio de Nazaré

Abstract

The covid-19 pandemic affected the occurrence of the Círio de Nazaré Festival in Belém do Pará in the current years of 2020 and 2021, demanding extraordinary capacity in the attempt to offer the event in an essentially virtual way. The Círio feast surpasses usual liturgical celebrations, spreading in the form of the most varied cultural festivities, such as the iconic Festa da Chiquita. Tourism in the city and a whole network directly dependent on it, especially the trade axis, were gravely impacted. In this scenario, the popular economy, as it mainly encompasses sellers who work in the informal sector, was one of the most affected sectors, due to social isolation. This article aims to analyze the adverse effects of the pandemic on the Círio de Nazaré Festival and all the cultural manifestations related to it, with a focus on the popular economy operating during these celebrations. Methodologically, it is a documentary research that uses journalistic sources and is sustained by the review of literature related to pandemic matters. Fragments of interviews carried out during field research, in 2021, with eight subjects related to the themes addressed in this study, were analyzed. The main analyzes were carried out from a foucaultian perspective of power, which corroborated the hypothesis that the festivities linked to the Círio have inestimable economic relevance to the street vendors who work informally, which is why the absence of these events, due to the pandemic, had stronger consequences on this vulnerable mass of workers.