Aprendizagem e reprodução de prestígio entre um grupo de curandeiros na Cidade de Maputo

Abstract

This work aims to understand how the healers' learning process is structured. This theme is discussed from two perspectives. The prospect of evolutionist argues that individuals depend exclusively on ancestral spirits to become healers. He also argues that they do not go through a learning process and that their practices do not follow pre-structured logic and rules. The structuralist perspective argues that although individuals inherit the spirits of their ancestors, they go through a learning process that occurs through ritual. It is through this ritual that individuals learn practices related to the healing and belief of healers. Due to the limitations presented by the perspectives found during the literature review, I chose to analyze the learning process of healers from the structural- constructivist where I admit that the learning process is based on the concepts of habitus, field and capital. It is through the components present in these concepts that structures and action schemes that are constructed and reproduced socially. In this case, healers incorporate the logic and rules present in the social structure, at the same time that they produce, legitimize and reproduce it. The ethnographic material collected during the exploratory research allows me to say that the learning process of healers is structured through the reproduction of prestige, which is obtained through knowledge and stories with their families. These prestige are maintained by healers throughout their generations. This prestige will be the basis for them to have the legitimacy to be incorporated within the field, and also to build a hierarchical relationship that exists between healers. (TRADUÇÃO NOSSA)