From an anthropological and historical perspective, and focusing mainly on the Argentinean situation, this article analyses Catholic male monasticism in Hispanic America, with the particular objective of evaluating the crisis, religious change and monastic imagination identified in contemporary Benedictine communities. It is argued that imagination, as a process of symbol production, has been intrinsically related to the practice of a new monastic spirituality; it has in fact been the force behind the appearance of religious experiences ideologically anchored in early Christian traditions. Empirical data on the Benedictine Order in Argentina suggests that at least three models of consecrated life can be identified in twentieth century Hispanic America, namely, the ministerial model, the social model and the patristic model. Research leads to the conclusion that these paradigms emerged through processes of imagination applied to the reinvention of tradition-creatively but, also, conservatively-in a global context in which both the monastic institution and society face changing demands.
Este artículo analiza el poder heurístico de la noción de imaginación para el estudio de la religión. Desde una perspectiva crítica a la distinción durkheimiana entre creencias y prácticas, el trabajo destaca su importancia para comprender las relaciones entre ambas. Para ello, se explora la literatura que empleó esta herramienta conceptual en antropología y otras ciencias sociales. En segundo lugar, se muestra su asociación con lo imaginario y la imagen, así como su condición liminar y creativa para el cambio religioso. Finalmente, dos casos etnográficos ejemplifican el proceso de la imaginación en el campo de la cosmología y la experiencia religiosa. This article analyzes the heuristic power of the notion of imagination for the study of religion. From a critical perspective of the Durkheimian distinction of beliefs and practices, the work highlights its importance for understanding the relationships between them. In doing so, literature that employed such a conceptual tool in anthropology and other social sciences is reviewed. Secondly, the association with the image and the imaginary, as well as its liminar and creative condition for the religious change is showed. Finally, two ethnographic cases exemplify the process of imagination in the field of cosmology and religious experience
This article analyses and proposes a methodological strategy—namely, adaptation-participation—for approaching ethnographically religious settings. This procedure is based on the adoption of native technologies of the self for reaching the numinous, which supposes a process of accommodation and re-socialization of the ethnographer to the field. By focusing on ascetic technologies carried out in Benedictine monastic communities of Latin America—i.e., silence and lectio divina–this study demonstrates how their use for social research grants ethnographic entrance into the cultural milieu of monasteries. In this sense, this investigation also reveals closeness between asceticism and fieldwork defined by the Socratic principle of care of oneself, which is constituted by technologies that subjects carry on over themselves. To summarize, this work argues that the adoption of vernacular technologies of the self through adaptation-participation bridges ontologies between fieldworker and Other’s culture by producing intimacy with subjects’ experience. This strategy of adaptation-participation might also be applied in non-monastic contexts or, rather, not necessarily religious contexts.
Focalizado sobre la situación del catolicismo argentino, este artículo trata de la relación entre patrimonio y visibilidad religiosa. En este orden, se explora y analiza la tensión entre los sentidos generados sobre objetos religiosos de valor patrimonial reconocido por la iglesia y el estado. Para ello el trabajo se aproxima, en primer lugar, al significado pastoral de los bienes eclesiásticos enmarcados en la idea de una nueva evangelización. Segundo, al reconocimiento estatal de todas las expresiones confesionales inspirado por el espíritu de una sociedad multicultural caracterizada por la diversidad cultural y religiosa. Finalmente, vemos algunas de las instancias de visibilidad del patrimonio religioso en la esfera pública y su relación con la legitimidad social de los sujetos institucionales de la patrimonialización. En este sentido, destacamos el rol de los rituales de visitación y el vínculo entre catolicismo y cultura, el cual refiere a la contradicción estado-iglesia respecto de la jerarquización real de estas dimensiones.
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