Governing the Poor: Neo-Pentecostalism and Neoliberal Subjectivation on the Peripheries of Brazilian Cities

Evangelicals, especially neo-Pentecostals, have been gaining increasing strength in Latin America (Mariano and Gerardi 2019). In the Latin American context, the case of Brazilian society is illustrative, where evangelicals represent about a quarter of the population and have a relevant influence on the country’s political and cultural spheres (Mariano 2013). The purpose of this proposal is to problematize the neo-Pentecostal advance in Brazilian society, particularly the reasons that explain its predominance in the peripheries of large cities since the 1980s. The hypothesis is that the neo-Pentecostal advance reflects the arrival of neoliberalism in Brazilian society. Neoliberalism is understood as a policy of social dismantling (Schwarz 1999), with profound consequences for the most disadvantaged social classes in the urban peripheries of large cities, but also as a rationality (Dardot and Laval 2014), aimed at the government and subjectivation of individuals by inculcating the values of competition and individualism so that state policies can thus be justified. It is believed that neo-Pentecostalism was one of the social devices found for the government of the poor population in the peripheries of Brazilian cities, since its theology of prosperity, characterized by offering magical solutions for the improvement of living conditions (material and non-material) of the faithful based solely on individual effort, coincides with neoliberal rationality.