São João de Naninha: uma etnografia do terço de São João Batista

Abstract

This ethnographic work presents an analysis of the ritual of the third sung of St. John the Baptist, which always takes place on the night of June 24 in the neighborhood of Gurguri, in the outskirts of the city of Mamanguape-PB. The analysis of this ritual was made from the religious experience of Mrs. Josefa Maria Vicente popularly known as Naninha, this cut was necessary in this research, because the life history of Naninha is intrinsically linked to the formation of the ritual and popular Catholicism of the neighborhood, in this way, the personal feelings and experiences of Naninha represent a bit about the life and experiences of the people who participate in the ritual and live in the neighborhood. Other concerns that permeate this work was to understand how to maintain and transmit knowledge about liturgical songs and practices, their various meanings and their symbolic representations, and to problematize the position of the native anthropologist in the production of written work and in the ethnographic film. The research methodology used in this work was that of participant observation from the perspective of the native anthropologist of Camara Cascudo, the construction of the life story through the oral narratives and the film record. This work begins with a brief contextualization of the political, economic and cultural environment that Naninha grew up in, and then a connection is made between her life history and the context in which she lived and that influenced her trajectory, I give continuity to this analysis with the description and analysis of the ritual studied. In the following chapters I discuss the techniques used in the construction of the ethnographic film and problematize the methodological choice used, that of the native anthropologist, demonstrating how the subjectivity of the researcher in the field was worked out and the difficulties and potentialities presented in this methodological choice.