T
HIS CHAPTER OFFERS A SELECTIVE overview of certain major themes,
trends, and figures in the academic study of religion in Latin America. It
is not comprehensive, and it is primarily descriptive rather than evaluative,
indicating a few facets of a more complex whole. The fact that Brazil, México,
Argentina, and Peru are highlighted merely reflects the limitations of space and
time, the vagaries of communication, and the busy schedules of scholars who
were invited to contribute but were unable to do so. Important work is also
being done in other countries within Latin America.Intraregional divisions and interregional connectionsThere is increasing international communication and cooperation among
scholars of religion in Latin America, in large part due to conferences of regional
professional associations, especially the Asociación Latinoamericana para el
Estudio de las Religiones (ALER) and the Asociación de Cientistas Sociales de
la Religión en el Mercosur (ACSRM).
As elsewhere, the work presented at these congresses varies, but the best
work is on a par with that encountered at major North American and Western
European conferences, for example that of the Société Internationale de
Sociologie des Religions (SISR/ISSR). The panels and sessions are often more
focused than, for example, those of the American Academy of Religion (AAR)
in North America. A key reason for this is the greater emphasis on movements
and developments that are specifically religious, which reflects the incredibly
rich landscape of religious material to study, the relative lack of people and
resources to do much more than address the most obvious topics, and the
related lack of emphasis on theory and on diffuse phenomena like implicit
religion and ‘religion and/in X’.
Despite these and other venues for interaction, and despite increasing use
of e-mail and the Internet to foster international communication and
collaboration, inter-regional connections among scholars in the field remain
relatively weak. Scholars in the southern nations of South America remain
relatively disconnected from those in the northern part of the continent and
from those in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. This is due to the
geographical and cultural distances involved, and to the usual constraints on
time, energy, and resources. Latin American scholars also face additional
pressures, when compared to many North American and Western European
scholars, given both the generally greater need for political maneuvering to
defend university programs and positions, and the difficulties of soliciting funds
from often haphazard sources in the face of a relative neglect of the humanities
and social sciences.270
ENGLER, MOLINA, DE LA TORRE, RIVERA AND MARCOS