“Eu rezo com a força de Deus”: memória e tradição cultural de uma rezadeira do Agreste da Paraíba

Abstract

This paper aims to promote reflections on tangential aspects of the class position of healer women and their followers, the regional and cultural issues involved in the rural/urban context, and local ethnic groups through research with a healer woman in the Paraíba backlands. We use oral life histories as a methodology to guide a more accurate profile of the healer women in the region, as well as a survey of specialized literature. We consider that everyday acts have become a substrate for the political field with Marian cults, Christian cooperation between employers and employees (rural and urban), and resistance against heterodox expressions of thought capable of breaking religious traditions originating from the colonial period.