Religião, turismo e território: um olhar geográfico sobre a Romaria de São Raimundo Nonato dos Mulundus, Vargem Grande - MA

Abstract

Religion has attracted interest from Geography due to its capacity to transform spaces. As a Hutna practice, religion can introduce new logics to territories, making them festive, as is the case of the Pilgrimage of Saint Raimundo Nonato dos Mulundus, Vargem Grande, Maranhão, studied here in light of the notion of religious tourism. In this endeavor, we rely on the contributions of Cultural Geography, Geography of Religion and Geography of Tourism in order to address the spatial history of that geographic-religious reality, problematize its territorial identity, ascertain the perceptions that constitute such a framework and identify the potential attractions in the configuration of religious tourism. The theoretical-methodological procedures used were: bibliographic survey and reflection; qualitative fieldwork, with observation and interviews; production of iconographic material; orientation exercise. We clarify that the material found here refers to scientific initiation research developed between 2018 and 2019. Furthermore, we generated approximations with the phenomenological method, valuing the meanings and contexts of the lived worlds of the subjects investigated. Regarding the results and discussions achieved, briefly, we state the following: the festive territory of the Pilgrimage of São Raimundo Nonato dos Mulundus, Vargem Grande, is a consecrated sacred space within the scope of rural and urban popular Catholicism, but it presents great challenges in terms of tourism planning, requiring the strengthening of its potentialities and the review of its intentions (which includes the world images of the Church, the public authorities and the private sector). Finally, by adopting a cultural approach in Geography, we propose the Religious Tourist Itinerary of São Raimundo Nonato dos Mulundus, inserting the symbolic and mythical content of the territories of the Mulundus farm, the Paulicas community and the headquarters of Vargem Grande. We therefore argue that investing in this endeavor can direct economic, social and cultural development to the municipality