A PALAVRA NEWSPAPER: SYMBOLIC INTERFACE IN THE MORAL REGULATION OF BELENESE SOCIETY IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

This article analyzes the denominational newspaper A Palavra as a symbolic interface of moral regulation and territoriality within the religious press of Belém do Pará in the early 20th century. The objective is to examine how the ecclesiastical press acted beyond the dissemination of institutional news, constituting a performative and mediating device between sacred doctrine, institutional authority, and the daily experience of subjects. Given the nature of the sources, a qualitative approach of a historical-documentary and discourse-analytic nature is adopted, aiming to reveal how the periodical constructed its truths from specific institutional positions. Grounded in Bourdieu’s sociology of the field and Foucault’s analytics of power, the study demonstrates how the denominational press linked the discipline of bodies and the normalization of customs to the projection of a moral geography over the urban space. It concludes that the denominational press operated as a central arena in converting dogma into moral norms, and norms into strategies for managing space and subjectivities.