Religion in the metro area of São Paulo

Abstract

This paper is about the reconfiguration taken place in the Brazilian religious scene in the last decades, more specifically in the metro area of Sao Paulo. The phenomenon is analyzed in two levels. First, the transit of people among religions, aiming at finding preferential flows in religious shifts. Second, being aware that such transformations have happened more significantly in the urban centers and in the poorer social layers, the article discusses territoriality in part of the religious métier (the so-called Pentecostals) in contexts of social vulnerability expressed in different patterns of solidarity and sociability.

Religious migration; Pentecostals; Igreja Universal; Metropolis; Sociability; São Paulo