Por uma geografia das r-existências : as manifestações culturais da Festa de São Benedito e Nossa Senhora do Rosário no Sul de Minas Gerais

Abstract

This research aims to interpret the popular strategies present in the festivals of São Benedito and Nossa Senhora do Rosário in southern Minas Gerais and the constituents of the arrangements of r-existence, resistance, their territories, territorialities and organizational dynamics existing in the traditional editions and before the pandemic in the municipalities of Machado and Silvianópolis. Both the Festa de São Benedito and the Festa de Nossa Senhora do Rosário are centennial and traditional in their municipalities. The festivities are worked in their traditional manifestations in a space and time when the rituals are allowed, performed in full and without restrictions, called extraordinary festivities; and those that occurred in 2020 and 2021 when the rituals could not be established as usual due to the pandemic caused by Covid-19. These festivities demanded transformations in their structures culminating in a new consolidation of sacred space and time, where cyberspace and the symbolic itinerary were the main ways to achieve social rupture and catharsis, fulfilling the festive re-updating and its cosmic cycle. The festivities that could not be carried out in the conventional way were called extraordinary exceptional, due to their structures being consolidated by actions that escape the ritualistic and traditional normality of the festivals. For the consolidation of the research it was essential the bibliographic and documental analysis about the municipalities and the festivities, fieldwork both in person and virtually, and semi-structured interviews with people directly connected to the festive organization. The conflicts between popular and official Catholicism are still present in the power relations established during the festive space and time, in Machado, more accentuated in the last years, and in Silvianópolis, more attenuated by the position of the ecclesiastic member who is in the municipality. However, the festivities present in the pandemic managed to fulfill their cosmic cycles by establishing the temporal and spatial ruptures. Moreover, interpreting how these festivities work to safeguard the culture is important for the implementation of public policies in non-pandemic and pandemic scenarios that have at their core the manifestation of the Congadas, Moçambiques, and the Caiapós group.