“Os índios do interior”: a instituição do crer e a folclorização do religioso segundo Michel de Certeau

This article studies the process of instituting belief, taking as a starting point the concepts put forward by Michel de Certeau. Linking Certeau to his interlocutors– M. Foucault, P. Legendre and P. Bourdieu – this text seeks to build up an anthropological and semiotic framework that aims to comprehend the social functioning of belief and the role of institutions in regulating the networks of confidence that make up human social life. Making use of this enables us also to put together an interpretative reading of the phenomena of dissemination of belief and the way those dedicated to the religious life became part of folk culture in societies that underwent the historical experience of Christianity.