This article analyses Argentina's contemporary religious field. On the basis of a statistical study on beliefs and religious attitudes, the authors reflect on a wide range of issues. They address the consequences of secularization in Argentine society, new configurations in how people believe and practise religion, shifts in religious identification, the religious diversification process, in which believers fall off the institutional frame, and, finally, people's on religious intervention in public issues (such as education, sexual health and family planning).
Over the last three decades, the production of social sciences regarding religion in Latin America has focused on the transformations of religious beliefs, practices, and identities in the region, with ethnographic studies being the prevailing methodological approach. This work aims at measuring the magnitude of the mutations in religious belonging and commitment to religious institutions in Latin America, identifying convergent and divergent profiles among the different countries of the region. For that purpose, the available statistical data both from official institutions and from research centers has been compiled and analyzed. The text further reflects on the epistemological assumptions underlying the construction of statistical information, on the contribution of quantitative studies to the sociology of religion and on their complementarity with qualitative approaches. It also explores the scope and implications of the secularization process in the region, based on changes in religious belonging and commitment. The existing surveys coincide in highlighting a declining tendency of Catholicism, with different intensities according to each country, a growth of evangelical adherents, and of those denominated Bwithout religion,^a category that was unknown decades ago. It refers to those Latin American who consider themselves believers, although they do not feel identified with any religious framework, within the setting of a strong process of individuation of beliefs and religious deinstitutionalization.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.