Social Dynamics, Transnational Flows and Public Incidence of Religion in the Frontier in Latin America

Abstract

In Latin America, the region known as the Triple Frontier is known for its qualitative religious diversification. Different expressions of believing and feeling abound in the neighborhoods and streets of the border towns Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), Puerto Iguaçu (Argentina) and Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil). The Christian hegemony, important in Latin America, shares space with African religions and with a notable presence of Islam. This dynamic makes the Triple Frontier a privileged geographic region to think about the religious dynamics in Latin America. There is, in this part of the continent, strong socio-cultural interrelations that are fed by the intense flow of material and symbolic religious goods circulating on the frontier. In this sense, the article we propose for this special issue of the journal seeks to discuss how these religious practices have been organized and maintained in the social, dynamic and multiform context of the frontier region. We are interested, based on empirical research carried out in the region, in characterizing the specificities of these distinct manifestations of belief/devotion/practices in the Triple Frontier and in configuring the socio-historical context of the emergence of these religious groups, to relate them to migratory and political issues, their transnational flows and the relations established among themselves in the public space. Finally, in treating the public sphere as a relational and discursive form, this approach will allow us to make visible the relationships between subjects of religious discourse and abstractly construct a model of the circulation network of categories to understand the dynamics of the production processes of legitimacy in the frontier region.

Keywords

• Latin American Religions
• Triple Frontier
• Brazilian religious dynamics