THE CULTURAL DYNAMIC OF PUERTO RICAN SPIRITISM: CLASS, NATIONALITY, AND RELIGION IN A BROOKLYN GHETTO.
Item
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Title
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THE CULTURAL DYNAMIC OF PUERTO RICAN SPIRITISM: CLASS, NATIONALITY, AND RELIGION IN A BROOKLYN GHETTO.
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Identifier
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AAI8203279
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identifier
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8203279
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Creator
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FIGUEROA, JOSE E.
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Contributor
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Prof. George Fischer
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Date
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1981
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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This study seeks to determine the role that spiritism plays in enhancing or diminishing both national self awareness and working class consciousness. To obtain the relevant data we used the method of participant observation among Puerto Rican workers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.;This study demonstrates that in a case such as Puerto Rican spiritism, religion can play a much more positive role, and a more liberating one than Karl Marx allowed for. As against the alienating aspects of religion that Marx tied to accommodation, this study shows that a liberating aspect of religion tipped the scale toward resistance. We show, through various case studies and a collective action, that religion, in our case spiritism, can at times become a tool that challenges, urges, initates, and perhaps achieves changes within the structure of everyday life. We stress that the contradictions of conformity versus accommodation, and religious creativity versus religious escape, interact with each other and in this way can bring about both national self awareness and working class consciousness.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Sociology
