This research intends to investigate the main religious festivals in the city of Natividade –
Tocantins, the Festa do Divino Espírito Santo and the Pilgrimage of Senhor do Bonfim, how
the relationship between local development and religious tourism occurs, through the agency
of social actors around of a religious identity that is attributed to the city. Authors such as Bajoit
(2006) and the relational management theory of the self, linked to the habitus presented by
Bourdieu (2009), as a way of life, which influences the performative forces treated by Yúdice
(2004), was used mainly as a basic construction on culture and identity. With regard to local
development, several authors who work with endogenous development and who see culture as
a factor generating development for a community or region were used. The research starts from
the ontology of subject-object interaction, with a constructivist epistemology, thus leading to
the adoption of a phenomenological approach and using research methods of a qualitative,
applied nature, character and exploratory objectives, using production techniques data such as
bibliographic survey, combined with records and analysis of field diaries with participant
observation, application of an online questionnaire for 120 people and in-depth interviews with
twenty-three social actors who are related to the area of tourism and culture in Nativity.
Photographic records and audiovisual recordings were also used, juxtaposing narratives of
memory and history to the recorded observations and material produced during the Festa do
Divino and Senhor do Bonfim Pilgrimage in 2018 and 2019 (in person) and in 2020 and 2021
remotely (due to the new coronavirus pandemic). However, the material collected reflects more
than fifteen years of involvement by the author with the aforementioned theme. It is supposed
that the religious identity attributed to the city of Natividade demarcates a set of practices and
manifestations that can guide a model of local development, in which religious festivals acquire
centrality. With that, this thesis presents about the assemblages around the religious festivals of
Natividade, in which it will not be about subjects or institutions, but about recognizing the
projects developed in the locality and who are the actors that are involved in these projects. The
identification of these assemblages around the religious tourism project for the city of
Natividade is essential to understand the processes that occurred or occur in the municipality,
since these assemblages can be individual, in groups or by associations. Finally, the
interpretations made it possible to establish the thesis that there is indeed a logic of organization
of actors in the Natividade community, so that the agencies around religious festivals do not
intend to affirm the city as a destination for religious tourism within Tocantins, but rather a self promotion of actors isolated in themselves or grouped by family affinities. And, that the actions
are geared towards cultural tourism, experience tourism and, more recently, ecotourism. There
is still no community awareness that religious tourism can be attractive. There is an
individualized awareness and, therefore, there is a lack of creating and putting into practice the
network of actors with projects and actions.
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