Belém in the Pathways of Faith: World Heritage and the Amorcomtur Web!

Resumo

The article presents historical aspects of the Brazilian city of Belém and the religious festival known as Círio de Nazaré (the Taper of Our Lady of Nazareth), its dimension as a web interfacing with tourism and its listing as World Heritage by UNESCO. In 2015, the city received the world title of Creative City in gastronomy, in addition to having the Círio as intangible cultural heritage since 2014. The paper describes aspects of a study that has been developed in the Master’s Degree Programme in Tourism and Hospitality at the University of Caxias do Sul, southern Brazil, on the Marian devotion event and its interfaces with tourism. It is also linked to the research called Trama Amorcomtur! Complex communication and subjective processes that enhance the potential for tourism, considered from the point of view of lovingness and autopoiesis, and to Amorcomtur! Study Group on Communication, Tourism, Lovingness and Autopoiese of the University of Caxias do Sul (UCS). It is a result of a post-doctoral project developed at the Federal University of Amazonas – Chaosmotic interlacing with Amazon Knowledges – in the Graduate Programme on Amazonian Society and Culture (PPGSCA-UFAM). Its theoretical approach involves studies on Tourism, Religiosity; historical aspects of devotion to Our Lady of Nazareth; tangible and intangible heritage. The methodological strategy is Cartography of Knowledges in line with Contemporary Science assumptions. The results confirm the importance of Belém do Pará and Círio de Nazaré as World Heritage, providing information about the exuberance of the Amazon region, the high historical value of the monuments and the centuries-old event, which expresses the web of lives interlaced in the construction of Marian faith.