Ciberespaço e turismo religioso: ritmanálise nos cotidianos das santas

Abstract

Nhá Chica, Santa Paulina and Santa Dulce dos Pobres’ sanctuaries, respectively in downtown Baependi, state of Minas Gerais; Vigolo, in Nova Trento, state of Santa Catarina; and Bonfim, in Salvador, state of Bahia; began to streamline their exchanges in the virtual space, mainly by using online social media. These municipalities are very distinct as they belong to different geographical regions, but they do have things in common due to their religious tourist attractions. These religious attractions are linked to the lives and work of characters whose historically constructed representations need to be promoted, disseminated, marketed and consumed through the perspective of tourist activity. Nhá Chica, whose beatification occurred in 2013, is in the process of being canonized; Santa Paulina, canonized since 2002, was the first saint of Brazil; and Sister Dulce, the first saint actually born in Brazil, was the last one to be canonized, in 2019. This demonstrates the attention the Catholic Church has devoted to Brazil, a country which also concentrates the highest number of Catholics, even after the advancement of Protestantism, especially the Neopentecostal evangelicals in Brazil, and Islamism, in global terms. The sanctuaries and devotees’ social media pages that have those saints as a theme, in the specific case of Facebook, promote, disseminate, schedule religious events, receive donations, create virtual visits, that is, streamline the informational, symbolic and financial exchanges permeated by the use of technologies. However, it is not known how such followers, potential visitors of the tourist spaces, behave, interact, and change rhythms in these social media, as well as to what extent such practices influence the tourist consumption of the cities related to those saints. That leads to the question that guides this study: How are the social media pages of Nhá Chica, Santa Paulina and Santa Dulce dos Pobres used, considering their rhythmic alternations, and to what extent can these virtualities imply the consumption of tourist activities of the religious type in Baependi, Nova Trento and Salvador, impacting their daily lives and contributing to their polyrhythms? To this end, a cyber-etnography based on participating observation was held on the Facebook believers’ pages and the official pages of each sanctuary so as to capture the maximum relevant information about behaviors in online communities. On another front, fieldwork was carried out in different neighborhoods in times of routine movement and religious celebrations to find, or not, the power of influence of social media. During that time, the exercise of rhythmanalysis was present in the search to feel, identify and understand the rhythms of these daily lives. Although this is a tiny timeframe, given the constant dimension and technological advances that expand the possibilities of using cyberspace, this study indicated the remarkable presence of the use of social media as dynamizing elements of the tourist activity in these destinations of consolidated religious tourism in the country