“A suave invasão” : práticas e representações do movimento Hare Krishna em Pernambuco (1973-1996)

Abstract

The Hare Krishna movement arrived in Brazil in 1973 through members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), the religious institution founded in 1966 in New York by Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In that same year, this religious movement would arrive in Pernambuco bringing with it its members, beliefs and practices for the public space of the state and despairing the attention of the people and the media. In this dissertation, we analyze some of the possible ways that the movement followed during its insertion in Pernambuco and how it was institutionalized and propagated in the state, between the years of 1973 and 1996. The main objective of this work is to understand some of the practices developed by its members in this period, and how they were represented in some of the local newspapers. We could realize that, in the broader context of the debate on the “new religious movements”, the Hare Krishna movement in Pernambuco was classified by the press as a "sect," in a perspective that sought to delegitimize this and other groups classified as "sects" through some kind of representations in the newspapers. The theoretical contribution of authors such as Michel de Certeau and Roger Chartier was fundamental in the way we conduct this research.