CHILDREN ARE THE INHERITANCE OF THE LORD. Politics and Religion in ABC Paulista

Abstract

The aim of this article is to contribute to the analysis of political behaviour among families of metalworkers living in the ABC Paulista region by including two essential variables: affections and religion. To this end, we present the results obtained in two studies carried out at different times, with slightly different empirical sections and methodologies that used ethnography, a survey and biographical interviews. The first research relates the possible maintenance of union militancy memories to the period of retirement and the distancing from political-militant engagement, while the second addresses the issue of the transmission and generational inheritance of political principles and values in families of metalworkers. In both cases, we are linking families, as a social domain, and politics, as an element of socialisation, to understand the constitution/maintenance of political behaviour. Religion emerged as an imposition in the field and became an intervening variable in the process of managing political behaviour, impacting the negotiation of affective elements between the families, as well as the political memories undertaken and inherited. It is also capable of generating transformations in the ways of understanding and reacting to present and past events linked to political actions and perceptions among the participants in both studies.