The social construction of cure in umbandist cults: a case study in a umbanda´s "terreiro" in Ribeirão Preto - SP. / A construção social da cura em cultos umbandistas: estudo de caso em um terreiro de umbanda da cidade de Ribeirão Preto - SP

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

Many people seek in umbanda solutions for their health problems, situations of interpersonal interactions and financial difficulties. The "terreiros" treat them by performances of specific practices based in a particular conception of the human being and a specific world view. The process of healing is carried out on the basis of a "spiritual semeiology" an interpretation based on symbolic religious elements. These conceptions and activities represents a good opportunity for a psychological and social researcher program, aimed to be non reductionist and also non ethnocentric. We describe the practices of cure performed in a "terreiro" of umbanda in the city of Ribeirão Preto - SP, looking for their possible significance. It is a qualitative investigation whose data were obtained by participant observations, daily field annotations, interviews and audiovisual registrations. The analysis based on the anthropologic approach of the person, aimed the singular human being in its cultural context, which differs from the mere representations of the person as a psychological "ego". The reference to psychoanalysis was useful specially through Lacan´s treatment of the self , which is akin to the anthropologic approach and makes possible an approximation of the psycho logic and the social, since it consider the person as psychologically structure by its relations with the symbolic elements of the cultural universe. We have studied two forms of spiritual cures which are called "descarrego" and "transporte". The data were clarified in eight categories according to the situations of observations in the field; these categories make explicit for the umbandists what is needed for the understanding of the wealth and disease states, the healing actions and their effects. We have shown that: the umbanda´s cult is characterized as a significant chain of verbal and non verbal elements that represents diverse meanings for the community; the symptoms of the spiritual disease reveal the degree of proximity of the persons to the religion; the practices of cure constitute a structure of "symbolic effectiveness", as in the sense given by Lévi-Strauss. Moreover, they functions as a form of expression of conflicts within the community, and thus constitute a "social drama" (Turner). The use of psychoanalysis permitted an approximation between the researcher and collaborators and made possible, in this way, to investigate the practices of cure taking in account the language and the significance that they represent for both of them. These practices have the function of an insertion in the community, since in the umbanda, the classification of a person as being healthy or sick implicate in the recognition of his/her degree of proximity to the religion.

ASSUNTO(S)

umbanda cure psicanálise umbanda psychoanalysis cura

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

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