Manu Militari: Catholic Legal Action in Urban Land Conflicts in Rio de Janeiro, an Ethnography with the Pastoral de Favelas.
Author: Breno Botelho, brenobotelho@id.uff.br
Department: Sociology
University: Universidade Federal Fluminense , Brazil
Supervisor: Christina Vital da Cunha
Year of completion: 2020
Language of dissertation: Português
Keywords:
Urban issue
, Catholicism
, Conflict
, Rio de Janeiro
Areas of Research:
Religion
, Regional and Urban Development
, Political Sociology
Abstract
My objective in this dissertation is to analyze the interaction between the transformations within catholicism and the housing issue in the city of Rio de Janeiro. In this sense, I sought to reconstruct the history of interventions in popular housing in which the Catholic Church participated, taking as an object the mediation exercised by the Church, via Pastoral de Favelas, in urban land conflicts. I analyze the experiences of the Leão XIII Foundation (1947) and Cruzada São Sebastião (1955), and I establish a special focus on the emergence, and relevance, of the legal-pastoral service linked to the Pastoral de Favelas, in the period that includes the outbreak of the attempted removal of the Vidigal community, in 1977, until the present time. In this research, I used a qualitative methodology, based on participant observation, bibliographic and documentary analysis. I also used quantitative data. Based on these approaches, I sought to observe the dynamics of interaction between Church, State and civil society, reflecting on the recent adaptations in the political-ecclesial scenario and its consequences in making social impact of the pastoral
organizations in urban land conflicts.
