Expressões de religiosidade em hortas comunitárias da zona Leste de São Paulo

Abstract

This article describes and analyses the presence and implication of the Catholic, Evangelical, African-based religions such as Umbanda, indigenous rituals and practices of a spiritualist nature in the lives of urban farmers, community garden managers and visitors of two community gardens located in a socially vulnerable region of São Paulo. The methodology used was Participant Observation and the following procedures were used to produce the data: (a) participation in the community garden activities; (b) in-depth interview with two garden managers, one male urban farmer and four female urban farmers, between April 2018 and December 2019; (c) on site observation of the interaction between gardeners, and urban farmers and community garden managers, in the same period. The results are presented in a socio-historical context and show that one community garden, Viveiro Escola União de Vila Nova, is a space that provides the manifestation of multiple expressions of religiosity and spiritualist practices, and reveals that African-based religions and those of a spiritualist and indigenous character suffer with stigma due to historical persecutions of these practices.