Juventude e pentecostalismo: participação social em contexto de favela

Abstract

We locate this research in the field of studies focusing on youth participation at the interface between Pentecostalism and poor youth. The aim of this study was to investigate the participation dynamics of poor youth from favelas in the context of Pentecostal religion, contributing to studies of social inequality. We performed the production of knowledge along the actors of the research by conducting ethnography, as of two main methodological strategies: participant observation and field journal. We conducted participant observation of the cults and the spaces of interaction between young people and also interviews with them (7) and adults (2) participants in the church. The data analysis is given from the three categories listed to understand the dynamics of youth participation, namely: Role of Pentecostal churches in contexts of neighborhoods / favelas, social recognition and identity construction. We perceived that for young people the church symbolizes a place of recovery and social esteem within conceptions and interactions established by these young people, marked by negative conceptions about youth, periphery and naturalization about the poor youth understood as potential delinquent. The church is often understood as a place of salvation for this social group within a adverse background of subordination, violence and lack of access to material, symbolic, cultural and recreationl goods. Although it might also be seen as a space of siliencing and control of youth in addition to the reproduction of a conception of society in which inequality and the possibilities of social transformation are understood based on centrality from the individual and moral values. Young people perform readings on this critical context, which has allowed them to identify ways to resist to oppression and subordination of places imputed to them, by appointing experiences of oppressions and seeking recognition of their voices, experiences and greater autonomy. Their resistances have occurred through negotiations and movements, such as: Young people intend to put guidelines for their interests in the context of the church, the non-acceptance of an announced destination for their trajectories, work to build more empowered identities, which leads them to believe more in themselves and their capacities of intervention in social, historical and political context where they live in. (CAPES).