Citation

Frigerio A. Sociol. Relig. 2002; 63(3): 291-315.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, Association for the Sociology of Religion)

DOI

10.2307/3712471

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Afro-(Latin)-American religions have spread beyond their original boundaries of race, class, and, increasingly, nation, to attract an economically, ethnically and nationally diverse constituency. In the process, issues of race and nationality, which have always figured prominently in these religions' discourses -- as well as of those who wrote about them -- have now acquired even more relevance. The lecture analyzes the efforts of white, mostly low middle class followers of Afro-Brazilian religions in Buenos Aires to accommodate issues of race and nation in order to overcome the increasing problematization of their practices. It examines the strategies that practitioners have employed to try to improve the image of their religion and how these have changed according to public reaction and the support they have garnered. The analysis focuses, especially, on their attempts to stress the cultural aspects of their religious practice and on their efforts to insert their religion within the country's history and culture by stressing the nation's Black heritage.