As Festas do Divino Espírito Santo são um contributo para a ecologia do espírito humano dos participantes de duas co-culturas, a Luso-americana e a Americana de Lusa-descendência

Abstract

This paper results from a study carried out in 2005 in communities that contain Luso-Americans: people born in Portugal who emigrated to the USA over 30 years ago and who are American citizens or hold dual nationality; Americans: born in the USA but of Portuguese descent and living in the East Providence and Fall River areas. The purpose of this study was to construct an understanding of the Festivities of the Divine Holy Spirit as an essential context for the process of building co-cultural identities. The thesis that we defend is that the Festivities of the Divine Holy Spirit (FDHS), as unique mani- festations of communication, ludicity and experience for those that participate in them, are essential learning and change processes that actively contribute to the construction of the Luso-American and Luso-descendant American co-cultures. Thus, we believe that the FDHS in the USA are an integral part of the ecology of the human spirit of each of the participants, independent of which co-culture they belong to. They generate inter-understanding and serve to calm tensions that arise from the double-consciousness created by the differentiated socialisation taking place in the Luso-American and the Luso-descendent American co-cultures. Given the case study methodology used, the location and limited number of participants in the sample, 303 subjects with ages ranging from 5 to 88, we do not claim that the outcomes of this study are scientifically generalisable to the diversity and multiplicity of the realities of all the FDHS celebrated in the United States. However, we do believe that the results indicate trends that a wider study would be able to better explore. Data was collected using questionnaires and interviews and data collection took place between January and June 2005, during the Festivities of the Divine Holy Spirit. Analysis of this data has allowed us to draw the conclusions that we would like to put forward for discussion at this congress.