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Religious Tourism and Religious Monuments: the Politics of Religious Diversity in Brazil

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Abstract

This article addresses the issue of religious tourism and the controversies around the construction of new religious monuments in Brazilian cities. First, I analyze a recent call made by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism to all cities aiming at “the strengthening of religious tourism”. The results of that call show that “religious tourism” has been a way for Catholicism to maintain its hegemony at a moment when the presence of other religious groups is increasing in Brazil. In the second part, the article focuses on the case of the Brazilian town of Imbituba where a 46-m-high Catholic monument is being constructed on a hill. The municipality’s response to the protests of local Evangelical communities against the Santa Paulina’s monument has been the building of another religious monument. This second monument, located in the city center, represents a Bible. I analyze the official discourses by the municipal authorities to show how they reinforce the idea of a Christian identity. Both monuments and tourist sites are approached as entry points to discuss broader issues related to religious diversity and its urban governance.

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Notes

  1. Santa Paulina, as Amábile Lucia Visintainer (1865–1942) became known, was canonized in 2002. She was born in Italy, and spent most of her life in Brazil, where she founded the congregation that would later seek her canonization.

  2. The group of pilgrims did pass in front of a temple of one of the main evangelical churches founded in Brazil. This was the scene that I witnessed, which inspired the conjecture that I propose in the article.

  3. The system that stored the material of the call for projects, provided access to a list with the title of all the projects. For 20 of them, access to the full content of the projects was available. I tried to contact the proponents of these 20 projects by email, which led to responses in some cases.

  4. The sources were accessed by Internet. But the three visits that I made to the city, in 2015 and 2016, were important for contextualizing those records and for generating information that I incorporated to the analysis.

  5. I present a specific analysis about the design of the monument to Saint Paulina in two other texts (Giumbelli 2018a, 2018b).

  6. The sources of the data are the official Brazilian censuses conducted by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). Other numbers for 2010: Catholics, 65% (they were 89% in 1980); other religions, 5%; no religion, 8%.

  7. Cf. http://www.turismo.gov.br/ultimas-noticias/1093-projetos-de-turismo-religioso-ja-podem-ser-inscritos-para-pleitear-investimentos.html, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  8. Personal observation made at the airport in Congonhas São Paulo. See http://www.cidadedesaopaulo.com/sp/o-que-visitar/atrativos/pontos-turisticos/4527-templo-de-salomao, accessed on 20/06/2017.

  9. Afro-Brazilian religions are valued in heritage policies. This suggests an important difference between situations defined by what Selka (2013) calls “heritage frame” on the one hand, and “religious tourism” projects, on the other.

  10. Cf. http://www.brasil.gov.br/turismo/2015/01/viagens-motivadas-pela-fe-mobilizam-cerca%20de-18-milhoes-de-pessoas, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  11. The presentation is available at: www.turismo.gov.br/conselho-nacional-do-turismo/documentos-relacionados-as-reunioes/item/download/225_244a991436ece65762c7f9fca3e1122b.html. Accessed on 23 July 2015; http://www.turismo.gov.br/ultimas-noticias/838-ministro-do-turismo-visita-a-expocatolica.html, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  12. I have discussed briefly the relation between Catholic and Evangelical monuments elsewhere (Giumbelli 2014, 161–163). For cases in the USA, see the instigating analysis by Howe (2008).

  13. A photo of the monument can be seen at https://plus.google.com/100389458271672466193/posts/BMWucaxneJe, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  14. I did not find indications that the city councilman was or would be evangelical. What is interesting is that his political career (he was in his third mandate in 2017) appears to have been constructed by his action as an employee of the hospital where the miracle attributed to Paulina was said to have occurred. See http://www.imbituba.sc.leg.br/vereadores/parlamentares/luiz-claudio-carvalho-de-souza, accessed on 09/06/2017. For a general appreciation of Evangelical activity in Brazilian institutional politics see Machado (2012).

  15. Cf. http://www.legislador.com.br/imgLei/122589165_12_1_6_2009.pdf, accessed on 18/09/2018.

  16. Minutes of the ordinary session held on July 9, 2007 in the City Council of Imbituba, made available in http://www.imbituba.sc.leg.br/, accessed on 01/10/2016.

  17. Cf. http://www.santacatarina24horas.com/capa/cidades/117-imbituba-sc/4280-inaugurado-monumento-a-biblia-em-imbituba.html, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  18. Cf. http://www.engeplus.com.br/noticia/geral/2014/aniversario-de-imbituba-e-celebrado-em-culto-ecumenico/;https://www.facebook.com/prefeituradeImbituba/photos/a.797735320341488.1073741915.308685275913164/797735537008133/?type=3; http://www.imbituba.sc.gov.br/noticias/index/ver/codMapaItem/16434/codNoticia/401770#.WS1NImiGPIU, accessed on 20/06/2017.

  19. Cf. http://www.imbituba.sc.leg.br/, accessed on 20/06/2017.

  20. Cf. http://www.santacatarina24horas.com/capa/cidades/117-imbituba-sc/4280-inaugurado-monumento-a-biblia-em-imbituba.html, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  21. Cf. http://www.ieadimbituba.com.br/acao-social-iead-imbituba/147-associacao-beneficente-ebenezzer.html?showall=&start=6, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  22. The Law 10335 institutes the Bible Day as part of the official calendar.

  23. One of the articles still observes: “Whenever the President declares an ordinary session to be open, a city councilman will be invited to read a Biblical passage, after which legislative work will begin.” Resolution n° 11/1998 de 15/12/1998, http://www.legislador.com.br/LegisladorWEB.ASP?WCI=LeiTexto&ID=316&inEspecieLei=4&nrLei=11&aaLei=1998&dsVerbete=, accessed on 18/09/2018.

  24. Cf. http://www.legislador.com.br/imgLei/122589165_12_1_166_2013.pdf, accessed on 18/09/2018.

  25. http://dc.clicrbs.com.br/sc/estilo-de-vida/noticia/2016/05/monumento-gigante-de-santa-paulina-gera-controversias-5821456.html, accessed on 09/06/2017.

  26. Cf. https://cidades.ibge.gov.br/v4/brasil/sc/imbituba/panorama, accessed on 20/06/2017.

  27. In reality, there is an irony in the situation of Imbituba. The monument to the Bible was built rapidly. But work on the monument to Saint Paulina has been halted, and in the current political situation, there is little chance that it will continue soon.

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  1. Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Rua Fernando Gomes, 38 Ap 12 90510-010, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

    Emerson Giumbelli

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This text was written within the project “Religion, Culture, and Public Space,” supported by a CNPq productivity grant in Brazil. Its first version was presented as a paper at the 34th Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (Lausanne, 2017). I am grateful for the contribution of Gabrielle Cabral as a research assistant to the project. Julia Martínez-Ariño and the anonymous reviewers were very helpful with their readings. Translated by Jeffrey Hoff.

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Giumbelli, E. Religious Tourism and Religious Monuments: the Politics of Religious Diversity in Brazil. Int J Lat Am Relig 3, 342–355 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41603-019-00084-0

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