Tensões globais, dinâmicas locais: Um olhar de conjunto para as “Juntas de Missões” (1681)

Conceived in 1681 by Prince Regent Dom Pedro, the Juntas de Missões were established in several localities of the Portuguese overseas empire and were entrusted with the responsibility of “promoting the missions.” Reflecting the tensions that had emerged between Portugal and the Holy See regarding jurisdiction over the missions following the creation of the Propaganda Fide, these institutions were designed, at that time, as instruments intended to improve the administration of the missionary work.
Fixing the Junta das Missões of Goa and the Junta das Missões of Pernambuco at the center of analysis, the proposed discussion seeks, on the one hand, to examine the institutional configuration of each body and the ways in which they adapted to local contexts. On the other hand, it aims to assess the extent to which they became consolidated as spaces of normative knowledge production, responding, in the day-to-day course of their operation, to the various issues associated with missionary dynamics.