Hierópolis de Aparecida-SP: lugar de fé, turismo religioso e espaço político do Brasil.

Abstract

The analysis of the spatial dimension of the sanctuary-city of Aparecida involves understanding the countless processes, agents, actions and interactions. Its formation comes from the cult of the Saint and from the religious and social practices that transform it. Throughout its history, the sacred space has been remodeled due to the expansion of devotion and, therefore, the profane space. Currently, the transformations have been based on the implementation of spatial and religious symbolic forms and on the development of religious tourism. Thus, the objective of the research is to understand and interpret the interfaces of religious tourism and the production of spatial symbolic forms in the sanctuary city of Aparecida. For the construction of the research, it was used the methodology of the geography of religion, field of cultural geography, in order to understand the spatiality of religious culture in the process of production of space. Thus, field research, bibliographic, interviews and photographic records were carried out, in order to interpret the interfaces of religious tourism, political actions and the production of space in the sanctuary city from social agents, as well as the religious spatial symbolics forms, symbols and the meanings in the structuring of the Religious Theme Park.