CIRRuS-member Alvaro Espinoza is co-hosting a lecture series on Contemporary Religion in Latin America at CERES, University of Bochum. Online sessions run Fridays from 12.00PM via Zoom. For details and contact info, see [PDF].

Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer

Protestant ‘Sects’ and the Spirit of (Anti-)Imperialism

Religious entanglements in the Americas

Latin America, United States, religion and politics – these are ingredients in a beverage of explosive power. The four terms also denote a close entanglement. Historically, this relationship has been shaped primarily by the Protestant mission in Latin America and its Pan-American objectives. But mission was yesterday. Today, under the conflictive conditions of life in Latin America, a new religious style has been molded and, with the Latin migration, the religious field in the United States is changing considerably. The present book, with reference to the Weberian distinction between “sects” and institutionalized religion, renders visible the logic of inter-American entanglements by tracing and interpreting exemplary developments and conflicts. The narrative is framed between two important religious events in 1916 and 2016.

Link: https://www.uno.edu/unopress/protestant-sects-and-the-spirit-of-anti-imperialism  

Link: http://www.wvttrier.de/

El potencial de paz de las "iglesias libres" en los EE.UU. y América Latina

En la actualidad los protestantes estadounidenses y latinoamericanos aparecen en público sobre todo como actores de la derecha religiosa, mal vista por la cooperación cultural internacional, ya que, entre otras cosas, debido al aumento de la intolerancia en la política, no se pueden llevar a cabo proyectos culturales planificados, ya que los movimientos evangélicos se movilizan en su contra. Estos actores, sin embargo, constituyen sólo una parte del movimiento protestante. Otra parte del protestantismo en los EE.UU. y América Latina está muy abierta a la cooperación internacional en nombre de una paz justa. La cuestión clave del presente estudio es el potencial de paz de los actores protestantes. El concepto de paz se basa en la noción de “paz justa“, que incluye no sólo la ausencia de diversas formas de violencia, sino también la justicia social, las condiciones de vida ecológicamente sostenibles y el estado de derecho. La cuestión es si la práctica de los actores protestantes cumple estos criterios o si, por el contrario, es fundamentalista.

PUB | Link (PDF)

Schäfer, H.W.; Seibert, L.H.; Tovar Simoncic, A.

Kipu/CIAS, 2021. PUB

La praxis religiosa es cada vez más relevante como respuesta a las múltiples crisis que azotan el continente. En ella encontramos tanto la complicidad con como la resistencia a los agentes de estas crisis, por lo que la complejidad del fenómeno pide herramientas adecuadas para su comprensión.

Este libro presenta un enfoque sociológico de la praxis religiosa basado en la praxeología del sociólogo francés Pierre Bourdieu. Fue desarrollado durante las tres décadas pasadas en contextos de crisis bélica y post-conflicto en sociedades latinoamericanas y del sur-este europeo.

Nuevo libro en español  -- in a couple of weeks as well in English  --  Ende August auch auf Deutsch

América Latina, los Estados Unidos, la religión y la política son ingredientes de un brebaje de cierto poder

explosivo. Los cuatro términos denotan un estrecho entrelazamiento. Históricamente, esta relación ha sido moldeada en primer lugar por la misión protestante en América Latina y sus objetivos panamericanos. Pero la misión fue ayer. Hoy, bajo las conflictivas condiciones de vida en América Latina se está moldeando un nuevo estilo religioso y con la migración latina se está cambiando el campo religioso en EE.UU.

El presente libro, retomando la diferencia Weberiana entre “sectas” y religión institucionalizada, visibiliza la lógica de los entrelazamientos interamericanos trazando e interpretando desarrollos y conflictos ejemplares. La trama narrativa esetá enmarcada entre dos importantes eventos religiosos en 1916 y 2016.

Latin America, the United States, religion and politics are ingredients in a beverage of explosive power. The four terms also denote a close entanglement. Historically, this relationship has been shaped primarily by the Protestant mission in Latin America and its Pan-American objectives. But mission was yesterday. Today, under the conflicting conditions of life in Latin America, a new religious style has been molded and, with the Latin migration, the religious field in the United States is changing considerably.

The present book, with reference to the Weberian distinction between "sects" and institutionalized religion, renders visible the logic of inter-American entanglements by tracing and interpreting exemplary developments and conflicts. The narrative is framed between two important religious events in 1916 and 2016.

Descarga gratuita aquí / Free download here
Descarga gratuita con más información / Free download with more information
à Una entrevista sobre el libro aquí

New article on theory of religion

Cultura & Religión (Chile), Vol. 14 (1) 2020

The article focuses on the concept of transcendence from a praxeological point of view. In order to shape the concept, the author refers not only to theoretical debates but also to tangible empirical conditions. In the first part, based on the observation that religious practice makes strange claims about reality, he elaborates on epistemological aspects of religious communication and religious action. In the second part, by analyzing religious practice in the context of the Guatemalan Counterinsurgency War, he then discuss the usefulness and ambivalence of the concept of transcendence. Finally, on this basis, he designs a praxeological concept of transcendence. 

Free download here:

https://www.revistaculturayreligion.cl/index.php/culturayreligion/article/view/923

You can download it here as pdf.

Or you might  contact https://www.crim.unam.mx/web/node/3675 to download Kindle or pdf.

Review:

Cecilia Delgado Molina's book touches on two of the most sensitive issues in Mexico today: violence and religion. As a result of a doctoral investigation, the author immerses herself in the logics of action of different Catholic groups in Morelos between 2012 and 2017, who, faced with the chilling increase in violence, were questioned and left to march fighting for peace. The study explains in detail the tensions, differences and disputes of a group of believers with different religious traditions but who, within the framework of the same institutional umbrella, must seek a way out of the problem that afflicts everyone.

The author contributes from three different fronts: on the one hand, she makes a re-reading of the ecclesial history of Morelos to understand the complexity of the religious field in our days; on the other, it applies HabitusAnalysis, a methodological tool that allows decoding the logics of action, and finally, the theoretical apparatus of Pierre Bourdieu is used, particularly the notion of the field and the interaction between religion and politics. The book is an innovative and intelligent reflection that allows us to better understand one of the passions that accompany Mexico today and that it is up to sociologists to explain. Without doubt, an indispensable work.

Hugo José Suárez, Mexico, 2020

From a conference on religion and politics in Guadalajara, November 2019, please see the conference paper by Heinrich Wilhelm S c h ä f e r  on “Laicismo, ética y poder religioso-político: comparación de condiciones y estrategias“. Laicismo, ética y poder religioso-político: comparación de condiciones y estrategias

From a conference on Pentecostal Strategies of Public Engagement in Basel, February 2020, please see the keynote speech by Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer on “‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain’ (Ex. 20:7). Conditions of Pentecostal political agendas in Latin America”. Conditions of Pentecostal political agendas in Latin America

Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer: HabitusAnalysis 2 – Praxeology and Meaning. Wiesbaden: Springer, 2020, 921 S.

With a preface by Franz Schultheis

After the publication of volume one, HabitusAnalysis 1 – Epistemology and Language, in 2015 in January 2020 the second volume of this approach to praxeological sociology has been published.

We are very pleased that Franz Schultheis, who belonged to the inner circle of Bourdieu’s cooperators, wrote a preface to the book.

Starting from the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Schäfer composes a methodical approach to habitūs of social actors and the logic of their praxis: Building upon the generative terms of praxeology, he focuses on identity and strategy in processes of internalization, their transformation by means of dispositional schemes, and their externalization in action. The emphasis lies on a theory of dispositions that allows a flexible understanding of identity and strategy formation in the context of social experience and the interplay with social structures. This theory is developed over the course of a three-step analysis on habitus as a network of dispositions, on the dynamics that unfold between the logic of socio-structural processes and practical logic, and on the praxeological assessment of social structures via models of fields and the social space.

This book is the second of three volumes of HabitusAnalysis. While the first volume deals with the epistemological underpinnings of praxeology, this book advances Bourdieu's theory with a special focus on creativity of action in the context of social structures, thereby preparing the methodological design of empirical models in the third volume.

Contents

• Generative Terms

• Creativity in relations

• Practical logic an logic of praxis

• Specific struggles: fields and space

The entire book can be downloadad at Springer.

We also offer a direct link to contents, preface, and introduction as well as to the bibliography.