Espelhos d'água: vivências do feminino para mulheres de Candomblé

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the meanings produced by women who practice Candomblé regarding their gender experiences, seeking to understand how these lived experiences shape the construction of their subjectivities. Grounded in Decolonial Psychology, the study adopted a qualitative, narrative-descriptive approach, based on the Thematic Oral Story method. Accordingly, semi-structured, in-person interviews were conducted with five women of Candomblé from the Ketu nation, residing in Uberlândia (MG) and occupying different positions within the religious hierarchy; the material obtained was subjected to Thematic Analysis. The results show that the experience of being a Candomblé woman is constructed in a dual manner: while the religion offers tools of communal care and support, the narrators also report experiences of distrust, power disputes, and different forms of violence, associated with the growing male presence and discourse within the terreiros, as well as specific forms of exclusion experienced by trans women. By recognizing the terreiro as an institution that produces care, the research contributes to broadening the horizons of thought on religiosity and gender, in dialogue with the principles of Decolonial Psychology.