Sacralidade, religiosidade e dedicação materna: a atuação de mães sociais em abrigos de crianças e adolescentes

Abstract

This research aims to understand the construction of religiosity and the place occupied by the social mother, a professional who works full time in shelters called home-houses, having as a prerequisite to be religious and reside together with sheltered youths, with the aim of developing the idea of family in these spaces. The figure of the mother, an essential character in a family composition seems to become responsible for inserting religious activities into the routine of the house with the aim of connecting young people to God. In the researched institution, Casa do Menor São Miguel Arcanjo, located in the municipality of Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro, the Catholicism is present through the pedagogical method applied at home, despite of being spaces that should be based on secularism. Religion seems to become an important factor for the construction and legitimation of the place of the social mother, offering her sacred elements to justify the construction of this place as a mission. In the midst of a routine in which children and teenagers must attend mass and develop religious activities within shelters, social mothers can function as reproducers of these modes to be based on the sacred. The intense work schedule and its consequent constant presence in the homes can contribute to the occurrence of adherence by part of them for this universe in which they need to be religious mothers and great examples for children and teenagers. The idea of motherhood that crosses its function is linked to traditional and religious conceptions about the feminine, that influence their way of being in the houses. To answer these questions, this thesis followed the qualitative methodology, combining oral history, participant observation and empirical research. We tried to analyze the speeches recorded in interviews and conversations recorded in the field diary. As a result, unknown stories were recovered and the place of the “dominated” was deconstructed. The social mother in a religious shelter, despite the problems of religious conservatism and legal issues, low pay, plays an important role Social.