AS MISERICÓRDIAS NA ÁSIA. UM TEMA DE INVESTIGAÇÃO MULTIDISCIPLINAR / THE HOLY HOUSES OF MERCY IN ASIA. A MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH THEME多學科研究專題：亞洲之慈善機構
This article proposes the "Misericórdias" as an intrinsically multidisciplinary research topic, articulating religious, institutional, and social history with studies on the circulation of charity and mechanisms of colonial power in the Portuguese sphere of Asia. Drawing on a historical-qualitative...
Saved in:
| Published in: | Review of Culture |
|---|---|
| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
| Published: |
Instituto Cultural de Macau
April 2005
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40014/3801 |
| Summary: | This article proposes the "Misericórdias" as an intrinsically multidisciplinary research topic, articulating religious, institutional, and social history with studies on the circulation of charity and mechanisms of colonial power in the Portuguese sphere of Asia. Drawing on a historical-qualitative analysis of the origins and expansion of the confraternities, the author argues that the rapid establishment of the Santas Casas, driven by royal patronage and metropolitan normative frameworks, functioned simultaneously as an instrument of urban pacification, regulation of devout lay life, and a strategy for consolidating social hierarchies. Methodologically, the discussion mobilizes documentary comparison centered on the Compromissos: the Compromisso of Lisbon (1516) and its successive adaptation in overseas contexts, with particular emphasis on the Compromisso proper to the Misericórdia of Goa (1595) and on the regulations of the Misericórdia of Macau (drafted in 1627). As a result, it becomes evident that the normative texts were not mere exported models, but instruments for the local reconfiguration of assistance practices, conditioned by demographic compositions, cultural differences, and relations among Christian populations, converts, and subaltern groups. The article concludes that, in light of Marcel Mauss's theory of the gift, charity operated under discriminatory logics, selectively favoring recipients and strengthening elite powers, revealing charity as a social technology of colonial domination. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |