How a city materializes religion: An ethnography among priests, pilgrims, and locals

Abstract

This article is part of the Special Issue “Religions and Brazilian cities, crossed paths” and aims to anthropologically analyze how religion is a fundamental category for the urban development of the city of Aparecida in São Paulo. This small town, with a population of thirty-six thousand inhabitants, is famous for housing the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida, the Catholic patroness saint of Brazil. For this reason, it has become one of the most prestigious pilgrimage centers in the country, welcoming more than ten million pilgrims annually. In this article, this peculiar urban configuration is ethnographically explored based on a long-term field research, complemented by news articles, photographs and interviews. My main argument is that religion is practiced and disputed spatially. Urban development is intertwined with the religious phenomenon and with the different categories of groups that make up the city, such as priests, pilgrims and people from Aparecida.