Give us this day our daily bread : The moral order of Pentecostal peasants in South Brazil
Abstract: This ethnography aims to identify the role of the Pentecostal beliefs that peasants in South Brazil use in justifying their life situations. Anthropological data were collected in the Sertão region of Jaguariaíva, in the Brazilian State of Paraná. An interpretative approach was used with concepts including the moral order of peasantness, moral economy, and multiple livelihood strategies. The core results indicated that Pentecostals in the countryside are not monolithic in terms of religion and have varying degrees of engagement with a variety of churches as well as their relations with the wider capitalism. Their economic and life-changing decisions are articulated by a moral order of peasantness expressed by dependence on Providence and the interpretation of events as a revelation of Divine will. The moral order is significant for maintaining viable peasant communities, orienting their relations to land, kinship, work, and consumption in a way that sets them apart from the “world.” Such findings question the Weberian explanations for the role of Pentecostalism in Latin American capitalism and confirm the repeasantization theory concerning the persistence of a distinctive peasant way of life.
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