A construção do mercado da moda evangélica: arranjos e práticas no cenário brasileiro

Abstract

Religion, even in the modern world, influences human behavior, culture, as well as the construction and performance of markets. In Brazil, with the change in the religious matrix, a new market is being established - the evangelical market, which presents intersections with other markets, such as fashion. The evangelical fashion market is aimed at Pentecostal women, who have unique characteristics in the consumption of clothes due to the tradition of their churches. Due to the requirements of these organizations, the clothing of evangelical women has long been outside the standards of conventional fashion; thus, portraying the transformations of this once stigmatized market, for a desired market, is relevant. Furthermore, although hybridization is present, most studies that address the relationship between religion and the fashion market consider agency and structure separately, giving greater emphasis to discursive processes. In this sense, the general objective of the present study was to understand how the evangelical fashion market is being built in Brazil through the theoretical lens of Constructivist Market Studies (CMS). In particular, the objective was to: (i) identify market practices; (ii) identify the established market arrangements; and (iii) analyze how these actors have promoted the marketization of evangelical fashion based on the tradition of Pentecostal churches. The research is of a qualitative nature, using different data collection techniques (triangulation). The data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews with 27 market players (retailers, digital influencers, Christian singers and individual consumers), together, non-participant observation via social media of the interactions between the actors and the analysis documentary. For the data analysis the thematic content analysis. As a result, numerous market practices were observed, highlighting as normative practices: the uses and customs of the church and the family group; as representative practices: trends and the desire to represent an image of a Christian and modern woman; As for transaction practices, three types of exchanges were observed: making the purchase at retail, making an agreement between shopkeepers and digital influencers / Christian singers and connecting on social networks. The market devices such as lives, stories, posts, Instagram metrics, Facebook ads manager, proved to be important resources for the structuring of the market, the formation of market arrangements and structuring practices. Finally, it appears that the reinforcement of uses and customs, the identity link, modernity and the media appearance contributed to the reconstruction of a market that was once seen as stigmatized, to a desired market, marketization the tradition of Pentecostal churches. As a limitation, we present the market analysis with a focus on retail. As contributions adds up to a new empirical reference to EMC, but also expands the understanding of material structures on the performance of the actors, that is, social media used in the market favor the flexibility of actions and roles of the actors and not only delimits their performance space.