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This book brings social and cultural issues to the fore that are especially important for, but not exclusive to, the Brazilian religious context. How to deal with cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity? What is the role of religious education in public schools? Is there a convergence between human rights, religion, and theology? In what way have churches and social movements contributed toward the res publica? The book's contributors discuss these issues in dialogue with the concept of public theology, evaluating its pertinence and shaping its meaning in a Latin American perspective. (Series: Theology in the Public Square / Theologie in der Offentlichkeit - Vol. 6)
This book promotes international and interdisciplinary reflections on narratives of exclusion, liminality, dissident power, and the forging of new identities during the last decades. Focusing on the rich case-studies presented by the Spanish-speaking world and beyond, it seeks to generate a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of “othering” and the strategies being developed by the traditionally suppressed voices of marginalized ethnic, gender, and mnemonic communities in order to be heard.
The dominant tradition in writing about U.S.–Latin American relations during the Cold War views the United States as all-powerful. That perspective, represented in the metaphor “talons of the eagle,” continues to influence much scholarly work down to the present day. The goal of this collection of essays is not to write the United States out of the picture but to explore the ways Latin American governments, groups, companies, organizations, and individuals promoted their own interests and perspectives. The book also challenges the tendency among scholars to see the Cold War as a simple clash of “left” and “right.” In various ways, several essays disassemble those categories and explore the complexities of the Cold War as it was experienced beneath the level of great-power relations.
Doing theology requires dissension and tenacity. Dissension is required when scriptural texts, and the colonial bodies and traditions (read: Babylon) that capitalize upon those, inhibit or prohibit “rising to life.” With “nerves” to dissent, the attentions of the first cluster of essays extend to scriptures and theologies, to borders and native peoples. The title for the first cluster — “talking back with nerves, against Babylon” — appeals to the spirit of feminist (to talk back against patriarchy) and RastafarI (to chant down Babylon) critics. The essays in the second cluster — titled “persevering with tenacity, through shitstems” — testify that perseverance is possible, and it requires tenacity. Tenacity is required so that the oppressive systems of Babylon do not have the final word. These two clusters are framed by two chapters that set the tone and push back at the usual business of doing theology, inviting engagement with the wisdom and nerves of artists and poets, and two closing chapters that open up the conversation for further dissension and tenacity. Doing theology with dissension and tenacity is unending.
Forty Years of the Landless Workers Movement: Landless Perspectives presents ethnographic insights into Latin America’s largest social movement as it celebrates its 40th anniversary. The Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST), with over 1.5 million members, has been fighting for agrarian reform since 1984. In its 40-year struggle, the movement has secured land for over 350,000 families and become a worldwide beacon for progressive politics. Its enduring presence is a remarkable feat; while other movements have come and gone, the MST continues to be a steadfast force in the pursuit of social justice and environmental sustainability. How has the MST ma...
A richly cinematic and compelling look at priest-politicians in Brazil and their religious and secular entanglements What does desire have to reveal about the nature of power? Through a detailed focus on the lives and loves of Catholic priests as they enter the profane world of party politics, Maya Mayblin explores the complex intersection of democracy, patriarchy, and religiosity in Brazil. For over a hundred years, Catholic priests have been running for government office, challenging Brazil’s constitutional separation of church and state and its self-image as a modern, secular nation. Priests find themselves walking a tightrope between religious and secular demands in one of Brazil’s p...
This is the second volume, after Democratizing Democracy, of the collection Reinventing Social Emancipation: Towards New Manifestoes.Here, the author examines alternative models to capitalist developmentthrough case studies of collective land management, cooperatives ofgarbage collectors and women's agricultural cooperatives. He alsoanalyzes the changing capital-labor conflict of the past two decadesand the way labor solidarity is reconstituting itself under new formsfrom Brazil to Mozambique and South Africa.
This volume explores problems related to processes of importation and adaptation of Western cultural and institutional models and their effects on social structures. Among these problems, those related to the permanence of reciprocity ties in official institutions and their correlates, such as clientelism and corruption, stand out. The book will appeal to social scientists concerned with analytical problems and theoretical advances in relation to the issues at hand, as well as the wider public concerned with the trends and results of the importation of Western models in the processes of transforming social structures, especially in “extra-Western” societies.
Originally published in 2004. In Brazil the liberationist reading of the Bible was once supposed to be an unstoppable force for social change, yet many observers now say that in the era of neo-liberalism the liberationist project may be counted all but dead. In Legacies of Liberation, John Burdick offers a bold new interpretation of the state of the Catholic liberationism. Challenging the claim that it is dead, Burdick carefully builds the case that it continues to exert a major influence on Brazilian society and culture, through its penetration of a broad range of grassroots struggles, especially those having to do with race, gender, and land. Burdick brings to bear on his analysis an understanding of Brazil rooted in twenty years of fieldwork, and a perspective shaped by anthropology, theology and history.