Novos cristãos em Lisboa: reconhecendo estigmas, negociando estereótipos

Abstract

This thesis has the objective of discussing the processes of construction, recognition and negotiation of stigmas and stereotypes from the insertion of three religious groups in Portugal: the Jehovah s Witnesses, the Filadélfia Evangelical Church and the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. Through a diachronic presentation of sociocultural dynamics of Ajuda parish, in Lisbon, the author sketches the context where the ethnography was accomplished and how different cult places are inserted in the landscape. The religions appear as privileged focus for an investigation of different appropriation and refutation games of stereotypes, recognition and manipulation of stigmas. It emphasizes the tensions that emerge from the proselitism face to face of the Jehovah s Witnesses, from the expectation of moral conversion of the evangelic gypsy and from the Universal Church s presence in the public space. In each case, critic points of the relation with the alterity are analysed considering the specific dynamics of each religious institution and revealing the complexity of the thematic in question.