Bilingüismo, individualismo empresarial y el «buen cristiano»: legado misionero entre los urarina de la cuenca del río Chambira (Amazonía peruana)

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the experience of the Urarina of the Peruvian Amazon experience with Summer Institute of Linguistics’ (SIL) missionaries and, in particular, the effects today of the evangelization which took place in the beginning of the 1960s. Among the Urarina, the principles of evangelical predication required —among other characteristics— a larger indigenous participation and the encouragement of free market economy. However, this experience was marked by the failure of Urarina’s evangelical aspirations. This article also demonstrates how the limited impact of the missionaries’ predication provoked a paradoxical overlapping of evangelical principles not so much with “traditional” religious values, but with the system of patronal exploitation known as “habilitación”. With the passage of time, this model influenced Urarina’s economic, political and social life. Finally, the article focuses on the Urarina perceptions about becoming “good Christians” and how these perceptions —revealing the ambiguity of the evangelical message— are linked to potential instability for both their physical bodies as well as their way of thinking and remembering.

Keywords

• Urarina
• Peruvian Amazonia
• bilingualism
• evangelical mission
• individualism
• enterprise economy