Cabrestos invisíveis: análise de narrativa de uma desigrejada

Abstract

This study analyzes the effects of Christian-Evangelical religious discourses on the construction of female identities in contemporary Brazil, a context marked by the strengthening of conservative perspectives articulated with neoliberal logics. Situated within the field of Indisciplinary Applied Linguistics (Moita Lopes, 2006; Fabrício, 2006) and guided by a performative conception of language (Moita Lopes, 2006; 2009), the research aims to analyze how a "de-churched" woman narrates her process of disassociation from the norms of holiness and institutional belonging to which she was linked, seeking to identify tensions, continuities, and ruptures with statements produced in the religious environment. "De-churched" refers to a woman who breaks with the institution of the church—its practices, sociabilities, and dogmas—without necessarily abandoning her faith. The data were generated through semi-structured interviews, in which the narrative was co-constructed as an interactional event (Bastos & Santos, 2013). The analysis is based on a dialogue between Foucauldian-based Discourse Analysis (Foucault, 1970; 1976), Narrative Analysis (Labov, 1967; 1972; Bruner, 1997; Mishler, 1991; 2002; Bastos & Biar, 2015; Santos, 2022), and gender studies based on Butler (2015; 2018), aligning with a qualitative-interpretivist perspective (Denzin & Lincoln, 2006). The final considerations show that de-churching is narrated as a process of identity reinscription marked by ambivalences: while producing shifts and resistance to regimes of moral control, it maintains discursive and affective marks of religious experience. The formulation "never comes out whole" exposes the persistence of these traces in the constitution of the subject, configuring identity as a coexistence of multiple selves in tension.