TITLE:
Reinventing Northeastern Religious Tourism in Brazil during the COVID-19 Pandemic
AUTHORS:
Christian Dennys Monteiro De Oliveira, Maria Lúcia Bastos Alves, Josenildo Campos Brussio, Ricardo Lanzarini, Silvana Pirillo Ramos, Amanda Priscila Souza E. Silva, Ana Angélica Fonseca Costa, Itamara Freires Menezes, Elidomar Alcanforado, Ivo Luís Oliveira Silva, Jânio Roque Barros de Castro, Kaíse Canuto Da Silva, Luís Américo Silva Bonfim, Maristela Andrade, Renata Mayara Moreira De Lima, Rosalma Diniz Araújo
KEYWORDS:
Religious Tourism, Brazilian Northeast, Pandemic, Catholicism, Adaptations
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.7,
July
16,
2021
ABSTRACT: The
current national and international scenario has specific characteristics
stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic that spread throughout the planet in early
2020, motivating a series of political, social, environmental, economic and cultural discussions regarding different
institutions, religious practices and social
actors. In the context of social and physical distancing, decreed by the World
Health Organization (WHO) and made flexible in some countries, such as Brazil, the adaptations made to reduce religious
displacement significantly impacted social, economic and cultural activities in both small pilgrimage sites and large
centers of national devotion. The present paper aims to problematize and
describe Catholic religious celebrations present in the nine (9) Brazilian
northeastern states during the pandemic. It follows a qualitative approach with
digitally collected data, which brings to light perceptions and concerns that
are instrumental in building an overview of religious tourism. As a result,
it presents three dimensions that point to challenges for the reinvention of
regional religious tourism, hierarchizing the predominance of devotional
resistance over technological bets and possible partnerships with other sectors
of local public life.