“Algumas páginas, eu acho que a gente tem que arrancar”: continuidades e rupturas entre o discurso oficial assembleiano e a autorrepresentação de feminino

Abstract

This study aims to remark the continuities and discontinuities underlying the official discourse of the church Assembly of God and the self-representation of women. Therefore the background of the research is the ethnographic fieldwork carried out at the church named Assembly of God - Missions, located in the city of Juiz de Fora - Minas Gerais. Understanding the church as a place of sociability, where power relations are capable of formulating and reformulating identities, is crucial for the research. In this way, how are female identities regulated, organized, and classified within this religious space? Do women attending this temple of prayer comply with the matrix of intelligibility disseminated by the church? With the purpose of answering such questions and some others, theoretical frameworks that have guided us to consider how identities are forged are based on Pierre Bourdieu and Judith Butler. Although they are part of different perspectives, key concepts from those authors will help us to understand the female participation in the Assembly of God - Missions. Divided into four chapters this Thesis aims to construct a narrative in order to take a fresh look at the women in the Assembly of God, often considered submissive and following Judeo-Christian principles. Therefore the assumption somewhat addresses the way to place those women who distinguished themselves in religious settings, since they are trying to subvert male dominance. Hence Assembly women start a process of resignification of the feminine image reproduced in periodicals from Assembly of God and in speeches made inside the Church. How, when, since when, which women and why? These are questions that must be asked. To this end, the ethnographic research included the meetings during the Prayer Circle, the worships and the Women's Congress held annually in the Headquarter Church. However throughout the study it was analyzed both the answers obtained through the quantitative questionnaires distributed to women as well as the interviews with women attending Assembly of God and with the minister and president of the Church.