Religious tourism and production space in Baependi – MG

Abstract

Baependi, a municipality located in the south of Minas Gerais, is consolidated as a destination for religious tourism, since visitors are attracted to this place due to the fact that it was the place of performance of Nhá Chica, a granddaughter of slaves who attracted people to the city who were in search of advice and prayers. Nhá Chica was beatified in 2013 and, since then, the flow of visitation increased, fomenting the tourist activity and contributing to the socio-spatial production process of the municipality. This article analyzes such transformations in order to understand the process of reproduction of the space, in which the spatial organization is inserted, since the logic of capital imposes a rationality in the organization of space by programming it for commodification and consumption, valuing the dialectic relationship between value of use and value of exchange, providing new meaning to the spaces. Thus, the surroundings of the sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Conceição, site of greatest tourist movement, are presented as the motto of this analysis.