Abstract: Modern Jewish immigration from Syria to Argentina was part of a much larger immigration movement, in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims took part—from the Ottoman Empire and from Mandatory Syria to North and South America in 1880–1930. Although the Jewish immigrants to Argentina fit into the modern world from an economic standpoint, in sociocultural terms, they chose the old world. In the absence of an established community setting, they voluntarily established frameworks very similar to those in their cities of origin because only thus did most of them know how to be Jews. While their immigration physically distanced them from Aleppo and Damascus, it did not nullify their connection with their hometowns. The borders of these cities seemed to stretch beyond their geographical location to embrace all Jewish immigrants from the same city in every corner of the world. This article, based on the Halakhic literature from the first half of the twentieth century, examines two aspects of the integration of Jewish immigrants from Syria in Argentina: the Halakhic issues that vexed them from the beginning of their settlement in Argentina and their reliance on rabbis who came from their communities of origin. The Jewish immigrants’ connection with these sages delayed their acclimation for many years and in numerous cases somewhat prevented the blurring of their pre-immigration identity. It also promoted the preservation of the original identity among their second- and third-generation offspring. PubDate: 2019-09-03 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00087-x
Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to the study of Islam and Muslims in Latin America and the Caribbean by considering broader geographies in the Americas and viewing these communitiesin light of hemispheric dynamics of movement, encounter, interaction, and exchange. This article seeks to do so in two distinct ways: first, by presenting the narratives of Puerto Rican Muslims’ everyday cosmopolitan lives in the USA in the context of movement, migration, transnational connection, and solidarity between and across borders and boundaries in the Americas; second, by suggesting that telling such transnational tales not only expands our view of what it means to be Muslim in the Americas, but also that it helps broaden our understanding of what it means to be Muslim in a cosmopolitan age. To do so, this chapter highlights four different narratives from among Puerto Rican Muslims in the USA as a way to situate their significance in the narrative of Islam and Muslim communities in the Americas as a whole: first, that of Youssef Ali Abdullah in Staten Island; second, Danny Khalil “al-Portorikani” in Yonkers; third, the impact of Hurricane Maria in 2017 on the Puerto Rican Muslim community in the New York and New Jersey area as a whole; and fourth, through the story of the founding of Alianza Islámica in Spanish Harlem in the 1980s. These narratives were sourced during my fieldwork in New York City in summer 2016 and fall 2017 and as part of a broader ethnographic research project with Puerto Rican Muslims in the USA, in Puerto Rico, and online. PubDate: 2019-08-06 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00085-z
Abstract: This article addresses the issue of religious tourism and the controversies around the construction of new religious monuments in Brazilian cities. First, I analyze a recent call made by the Brazilian Ministry of Tourism to all cities aiming at “the strengthening of religious tourism”. The results of that call show that “religious tourism” has been a way for Catholicism to maintain its hegemony at a moment when the presence of other religious groups is increasing in Brazil. In the second part, the article focuses on the case of the Brazilian town of Imbituba where a 46-m-high Catholic monument is being constructed on a hill. The municipality’s response to the protests of local Evangelical communities against the Santa Paulina’s monument has been the building of another religious monument. This second monument, located in the city center, represents a Bible. I analyze the official discourses by the municipal authorities to show how they reinforce the idea of a Christian identity. Both monuments and tourist sites are approached as entry points to discuss broader issues related to religious diversity and its urban governance. PubDate: 2019-07-15 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00084-0
Abstract: The establishment of a Syriac Orthodox archdiocese in Guatemala (including other countries in Latin America) in 2013 further complicated an already fragmented Guatemalan religious landscape. Under the leadership of a former Roman Catholic priest, now a Syriac Orthodox bishop, a religious renewal movement emerged in 2003, which was excommunicated in 2006 by the Roman Catholic Church. In 2013, the movement joined the Syriac Orthodox Church, whose Patriarch resides in Damascus, Syria. Members of this archdiocese are almost exclusively Mayan in origin, mostly live in poor, rural areas, and display charismatic-type practices. The communities that first joined this movement were located in areas severely affected by the armed conflict (1960–1996); but it subsequently attracted more diverse communities, including the cofradías (religious lay brotherhoods). This article studies the emergence of a Syriac Orthodox Church (SOC) in Guatemala, and argues that becoming Syriac Orthodox allowed these diverse communities to reconcile different aspects of their local world (traditional and charismatic practices, enhanced lay leadership, local Mayan identity) and its very shortcomings increased its attractiveness. This paper adopts a multi-disciplinary approach and draws upon diverse sources, including fieldwork in Guatemala and Los Angeles, to capture voices both inside and outside the archdiocese. While the Pentecostal and Catholic Charismatic movements in Guatemala have already attracted scholarly attention, the appearance of Orthodox Christianity on a large scale raises new questions. PubDate: 2019-07-03 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00083-1
Abstract: An interview with Mr. José Luis Perez Guadalupe, author and organizer of the books Entre Dios y el César: El impacto político de los evangélicos en el Perú y América Latina (2017) and Evangélicos y Poder en América Latina (2018), about the influence of Pentecostalism in America Latina’s political scenery, especially in Brazil. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00072-4
Abstract: This article analyzes a form of spirituality known as New Age in Argentina and argues that the heterogeneous space of current spiritualties is the cause and effect of a sociocultural transformation that goes beyond the religious field in form and content, challenging both the supposed dominant position of Catholicism and secularism that characterizes Argentinean culture. To this end, and taking into account a historical dimension, our analysis indicates how these spiritualities condense a constellation of languages and experiences of energy, positive philosophy, ecology, vegetarianism, and personal growth, focusing on personal autonomy and immanence. Secondly, the work emphasizes how the phenomenon of massification of this type of practices forces us to rethink both the changes that have occurred in the “religious field” and the epistemological foundations that inspire this kind of analysis, and even the concept of religion itself as associated with explicit belief systems and the church as privileged traits. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-018-0064-3
Abstract: Identity-based associations or organizations help to mobilize diverse individuals toward liberation, to combat injustices, and to provide mutual support. Despite these advantages, there are significant practical and conceptual difficulties to identity politics. This paper thus seeks to critically engage Latino Muslim identity politics as emerging from contexts of marginalization and from complex relations between Latino Muslims and the scholars who work with them PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00077-z
Abstract: The paper aims at contributing to the studies on religion and politics in Latin America by analyzing the interrelations between Judaism and Kirchnerism in Argentina. In order to accomplish its objectives, the author analyzes the discursive production of ethnicity in both the Llamamiento Argentino Judío and Jewish newspaper Comunidades. These two cases have been chosen because of their placement in opposing sides of the political spectrum. While the Llamamiento sustains Kirchnerist governments, Comunidades expresses a kind of interrelation between Judaism and politics that we have called ethnic anti-Kirchnerism. The study of these processes allows us to reflect on several issues such as: (1) Jewish integration into the national society, (2) the relevance of Jewish affairs in the Argentinean political setting, and (3) the relevance of available political identities in the making of the Jewish field. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00068-0
Abstract: Throughout Brazil, a growing number of former Christians have been turning to Judaism in recent years. As many are not accepted as Jewish by Jewish institutions in the country, they have begun to form communities of their own in various urban centers. This paper explores the socio-religious identification practices of one such emergent community, located in Brasília, the nation’s capital. It argues that in the Brazilian context, an understanding of religious identification requires a consideration of nationalist ideologies. It takes up Robbins’s (2004) theoretical account of conversion as a syncretic process to propose that members of the community in Brasília continually reconcile their Jewishness with their Brazilianness. For Brazilian hopeful converts to Judaism, Jewishness and Brazilianness often are perceived to be mutually incompatible; claiming both at the same time is ideologically problematic. To manage this sense of dissonance, Brazilians who wish to become Jewish engage in a continuous semiotic negotiation between the two forms of identification. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00075-1
Abstract: This article aims at focusing on the facts and agents which made the establishment of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi tariqah in Mexico City possible, as a branch from the Halveti Jerrahi tariqah in Istanbul. With this in mind, I will discuss the presence of Sufism in the American continent in order to delve into the history that allowed the encounter between Lex Hixon and Shaykh Muzaffer Ashki al-Jerrahi in 1978, in New York City. This moment, recorded in the Islamic prayer spaces of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi communities in Mexico City and New York City, is the starting point in the story that paves the way for a new branch of the tariqah of Istanbul. More than 30 years later, Lex Hixon and Shaykh Muzaffer Ashki al-Jerrahi are still remembered in Mexico given their openness towards the feminine and towards all other sacred traditions which are part of a single trunk, while expressing themselves in various branches. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00070-6
Abstract: This article focuses the link that federal judges in Argentina have with Catholicism. To that end, based upon biographical sociology, ways of religious socialization, link with the institution, and modes of legitimatization are reconstructed herein. Thus, the authors aim at contributing to two discussions. On one hand, the discussion about contemporary socio-religious transformations and, on the other, the discussion about the features that characterize the state elites in such regard. That allows us to know, to some extent, both the features of a collective that is strategically positioned in the local level and the manifestation of certain global trends. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00066-2
Abstract: This study aims to analyse the socioeconomic and demographic profiles of Muslims living in Brazil and Mexico based on the data provided by the Brazilian and Mexican Demographic Censuses, both conducted in 2010. First, we provide a brief history of the Muslim presence in the two most populous and economically relevant countries of Latin America. Subsequently, their socioeconomic and demographic profiles are drawn from the following variables: number of followers, country of birth, gender, age, state of residence, education, and occupational situation in the labour market. Finally, we present conclusions regarding the possible association of each demographic profile with the maintenance of Islamic religiosity in such minority contexts. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00073-3
Abstract: The mental state of mediums has often been explained in the anthropological, psychological, and psychiatric literature in terms of dissociative trance. Even though mediumistic experiences involve, by definition, many of the elements of experiences referred to as dissociative, there is some controversy about the role played by dissociation in mediumistic practices and there are few cross-cultural studies on the phenomenology of mediumship. Despite its influential contributions to elucidating the clinical and neurophysiological correlates of dissociative experiences, the biomedical model has been criticized for its emphasis on psychopathological aspects of experience and the superficial consideration of cultural and psychosocial factors at the origin of mediumistic experiences, particularly in non-clinical contexts. In this paper, we review the evidence pertaining to a series of psychiatric and anthropological investigations of mediumship carried out in Brazil and abroad in order to illustrate how group and cultural differences impact the phenomenology, definitions, and meanings attributed to mediumistic experiences. To do so, we explore the differences that exist (1) between mediums from the same religious affiliation, (2) between mediums from different affiliations, and (3) between mediums from different cultural contexts, focusing on a comparison of cases from Brazil and the UK. We argue that mediumistic experiences and beliefs are highly variable across (and even within) cultures to support a single and monolithic classification. Based on multiple evidentiary sources, we challenge the pathologically oriented biomedical model of mediumship by pointing out the complexity and diversity of these experiences and mediumship’s many cultural interpretations and phenomenological variations. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of the studies reviewed for the definition of mediumship in terms of dissociation and trance. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00076-0
Abstract: On the basis of ongoing research, this article attempts to advance a comparative perspective of conversion to Islam and return to Orthodox Judaism in two different national Catholic contexts: Argentina and Brazil. It aims to shed light on the plausibility of changing from one way of life to another in both monotheistic religions. At the center of this exploratory study are two conversion-led movements: Jewish religious revival (teshuva) and the emergence of Muslim convert communities in Buenos Aires, with some references to San Pablo as well. This comparative approach examines the dynamics reshaping religious frontiers within both communities: one awakening and legitimizing an ethno-national diaspora of “religion as heritage,” in contrast with the other, which is expanding “religion as belief” among non-Arabic people. The illustrations of similarities and differences when adopting alternative beliefs focus on symbolic devices framing the borders of both communities, as well as the dynamics of adopting traditional modalities. Transformations in the meaning of identity and belonging in both non-Catholic groups are assessed in relation to the frameworks of diversity and multiculturalism in the national social contexts of both countries. PubDate: 2019-06-01 DOI: 10.1007/s41603-019-00069-z
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