Religious change and the recreation of community in an urban setting among the Tzotzil Maya of Highland Chiapas, Mexico.
Item
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Title
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Religious change and the recreation of community in an urban setting among the Tzotzil Maya of Highland Chiapas, Mexico.
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Identifier
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AAI9830767
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identifier
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9830767
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Creator
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Sullivan, Kathleen.
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Contributor
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Adviser: June Nash
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Date
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1998
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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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Anthropology, Archaeology | Anthropology, Cultural | Religion, General
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Abstract
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This dissertation analyzes the factors which motivate some individuals and families within the township of San Juan Chamula to convert from traditional Catholicism to evangelical Protestantism and how conversion relates to the elite's expulsion of non-cargo participants. It attempts to construct a model of conversion behavior that links the realities of social class, gender and power with the consequences of socio-religious change.;Based upon twenty months of fieldwork in Highland Chiapas, I present two basic findings that suggest the need to re-conceptualize and broaden the understanding of religious conversion. First, I show that many evangelicos (Sp., evangelical Protestants) are rallied not so much by the "call to follow Jesus," or even the charisma of the preachers; rather, they respond to a spiritual energy that springs from their sense of moral responsibility for the soul for their community and the preservation of the tenets of tradition. In this sense, evangelicos are the "moral overseers" attempting to return their community to the traditional values and morals of their culture. Thus, there is an essential dialectic between individual religious conversion and community construction. At one level, the overlapping complex processes of daily life promote choices that are later defined along religious lines. At another level, Chamula evangelicos tend to convert as individuals whose very sense of "self" rests upon participation within a community. I argue that religious change in Chamula is, therefore, a reinforcement of cultural codes. Thus, as Chamulas become evangelicos, they assume the role of "moral overseers" creating, convert by convert, a restorative movement.;Secondly, what is labeled "religious conversion" may mask other macro processes that occur when indigenous people leave traditional religion to become evangelicos. These processes include: (1) the movement of rural producers into wage labor and artisan production; (2) migration from rural to urban settings; and (3) class formation and the subsequent intra-communal oppression of indians. Throughout this dissertation these processes are analyzed as they relate to and explain "conversion.".
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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.
